


Atlantic City

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-28
Updated: 2010-10-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 09:05:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15093569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Josh, Donna, CJ and Toby take a weekend trip to Atlantic City. Nothing can go wrong there, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

“We shouldn’t do this.”

“Of course we should. You know you want to do this.”

“Of course I want to, but we’re going to get in huge trouble when they find out.”

“Yes, but won’t it be worth it?”

“Yeah, but you should know right away, I’m blaming it on you.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything different.”

“Ok then, let’s do this.”

**********

I wake up, groggy and hung over like never before. The room’s spinning and the light just beginning to stream in through the window is blinding me. And my stomach. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this sick in my life. How many did I have? And at what point did I switch from wine coolers to tequila? 

I pry my head off Josh’s chest and try to keep my eyes closed as I sit up. Well, that’s not working, so I plop back down on him and try to stop the nausea from turning into vomit. Because quite frankly, if I do vomit, it wouldn’t be polite to do it on my boss. That would just be….

Josh? My head is on Josh? Why is my head on Josh? I jump up, which causes the spinning to speed up and my stomach to all but hurl, and stare down at a sleeping, drooling, snoring, Josh. What in the hell am I doing in bed with Josh?

My first thought is to panic. I got drunk and slept with my boss? How cliché. And what’s worse is that I don’t remember any of it. How many times have I dreamt of sleeping with Josh, and this is how it happened? On a weekend trip to Atlantic City while drunk out of my mind? In my dreams, it always happens in one of two ways. A - we finally confess our undying love for one another, date for one to two weeks, have “the” talk, dance in his living room to old Beatles songs, and then spend hours learning each other’s bodies, tasting every inch of each other, and making love until the sun comes up the next morning, then read the paper, drink coffee, and sleep the day away in each other’s arms, or B- one night while working late at the office, we get into an argument and I turn to leave but just as I get to the door, he reaches out and slams it shut, pushing me against it and devouring me with his mouth while I frantically undo his belt and push his pants down around his ankles, wrapping my legs around his waste and biting down on his shoulder to stifle a moan as he enters me. But this? Drunk and unmemorable? This, I’ve never dreamt about.

I have to get up, but the room is spinning so much, I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk. And at this point, I’m willing to pay upwards of $200 for some Tylenol. I try to focus, and my eyes drift once again to Josh. He’s sound asleep. What am I going to do? If he was as drunk as I was, which he no doubt was, I might be able to sneak out of here and get back to my room, and he might never remember that we… After all, I don’t. But if he does remember and we don’t talk about it, it’ll be a disaster, and I can’t be immature enough to let that happen. No, we’re going to have to discuss this like adults; Josh is just going to have to pretend to be one.

I get out of bed ever so slowly and stumble into the bathroom, where I hope Josh has ibuprofen in his toiletries. Yes! I find the bottle and take three. As I open my mouth, my breath nearly knocks me out cold. Whoa. I look around for a minute and then use his toothbrush. I know it’s gross, but I’ve slept with him, we’ve already shared bodily fluids. And that just pisses me off. I can’t even remember how he kissed? I’ve always imagined that we’d be just awesome at that, what with the bantering and all.

I stare at myself in the mirror as I brush my teeth. Man I look like crap. My hair’s tangled and has… what is that… confetti in it? Mascara’s smeared under my eyes, making me look a little bit like Elvira, but without the boobs. My shirt has some sort of stain on it, and it’s twisted around… wait a minute. My shirt?

I look down to see that I’m fully dressed. I know, maybe I should’ve noticed this before, but I don’t think you’re quite grasping how horrible I feel and how foggy my mind is right now. Anyway, I’m wearing the shirt I wore last night and a pair of what I guess is Josh’s sweats. After sex, I got up and got dressed? Maybe we ordered pizza and stayed up talking? Was it bad sex, and I felt the need to get dressed afterwards to cover it up as much as possible? And why am I wearing my socks again? Did I have sex in socks? Please tell me I didn’t have sex wearing socks.

I wash my face and use Josh’s brush to brush out my hair, which combined with brushing my teeth, almost makes me feel like a person again. Almost. Then I stumble back into the bedroom and put the bottle of pills and a glass of water on the nightstand next to Josh. He’ll no doubt need them. After that I look around the spinning room at my pants, neatly folded over a chair with my bra draped over them, my shoes, purse, and all my jewelry except my ring on the table next to the chair. So apparently it wasn’t “barely make it in the room, ripping clothes off each other, leaving a trail from the door to the bed” sex.

I sit down on the chair and look over at Josh, still sleeping in bed. Now that I really look, he’s wearing a shirt as well. Damn, how bad was it? Did he put pants back on too? I should check. What? I should. Anyway, I figure if he’s not wearing pants, I slept with him; I should at least get to check out the merchandise. I stand slowly back up and walk over to his side of the bed, pull the covers back a little and looked down to see if he’s wearing anything… on the bottom half. He is. He’s wearing pajama bottoms. Hmm…I could see him putting his boxers back on, but plaid pajama bottoms? What the hell’s going on?

I stand there for another minute, looking between him and my pants, and then I start to assess other things. And by other things, I mean my body. There’s no discomfort. None. And I don’t feel the slightest bit sticky. I know that’s gross, but I’m doing an assessment here, I need to be thorough. I walk back into the bathroom and lift my shirt up over my head. No scratches, no marks, no hickeys, nothing. I put my shirt back on and walk back into the bedroom, taking in Josh again. No marks on what I can see of him either. Hmm… is it possible that we didn’t have sex? 

Well, what do you know? I didn’t sleep with Josh. This is good news. Don’t get me wrong. I’d like to sleep with Josh someday, but not like this. No, this is good. There will be no awkwardness, no talking about it, no pretending it didn’t happen. 

I walk back over to my pants and feel through the pockets for my room key. Not there. I look through my purse. Not there either. I sit on the chair and call down to the front desk.

“Good morning.” Oh wow. He’s way too chipper.

“Umm… hi.” My voice sounds disgusting.

“How may I help you?” You can start by talking quieter. 

“What time is it?”

“5:05, ma’am.”

“Oh, I lost my room key and I need another one,” I manage to growl out.

“Certainly. What name is the room under? I’ll have one waiting for you down at the front desk.”

It actually takes me a minute to remember. “Moss. Donna Moss.”

“Moss?” 

“Yes.” 

“Ma’am, you cancelled that room last night.”

“What?”

“According to the computer, you cancelled that room last night.”

“No I didn’t. I checked in yesterday afternoon.”

“Yes ma’am. According to this, you cancelled your room last night and had us move your things into Mr. Lyman’s room.”

What????? “What?”

“Mr. Josh Lyman. The room you’re calling from.”

“I know where I’m calling from,” I spit out at him. “But I did not cancel…” I drift off as I see my suitcase and duffel bag sitting on the floor in the corner.

“Ma’am?”

“I’m sorry. I cancelled my room last night, you said.”

“Yes, for the rest of the weekend. We moved your things to Mr. Lyman’s room. Do you need another?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’ll call you back.”

“Yes, ma’am. Have a nice day.”

“Thank you.”

Ok, what in the hell is going on? I think for several minutes, but I simply can’t put my finger on why I cancelled my room and had my things moved in here. Was I trying to save money? And if I was, why didn’t I have my things moved to CJ’s room? She’s here. So is Toby, although I can’t imagine bunking up with him for the weekend. And speaking of CJ, I don’t think she’s going to like that I’m staying with Josh for three nights. Hell, I don’t think she’d like it if I stayed with him for three hours.

And did Josh agree to this? Did the hotel over book? What is happening? I need sleep. I can’t think about this right now. I need to go to my room and go back to bed. But I can’t go to my room and go back to bed because I apparently don’t have a room anymore. Which means if I’m going to sleep, I’m going to have to do it there. On that bed… with Josh. That can’t be a good idea.

It takes me all of a minute to decide screw it. Not literally. I mean, I need sleep, there’s a king bed directly in front of me, I’ve been sleeping in it for the last few hours, and good idea or not, I’m getting back in it and going back to sleep. I’ll figure all this out in the morning. Josh can help.

I grab a t-shirt from my bag and change out of the stained button-down shirt I’m wearing, and then I crawl back into bed, staying on my own side. We don’t need anymore of me draping myself over my boss. I mean, yes, it was comfortable, yes, his chest is strong, but he’s bound to wake-up some time today, and we’re going to have enough to figure out. We don’t need to be focused on how well our bodies molded into one another or how completely normal it felt to be holding onto one another, or how great his hand felt in my hair. No, we don’t need to focus on that at all.

Just as I’m thinking this, Josh rolls over in his sleep and wraps his left arm around me from behind. Now here I am, focusing on how well our bodies mold into one another, how completely normal it feels being held by him, how great his hand feels resting against my stomach, and how warm his breath is on my neck. Didn’t I just say we didn’t need to focus on this type of stuff?

I should do something. I should squirm, jar him just enough to get him to move, but I’m focusing on all that stuff I’m not supposed to be focusing on, and we’ve already discussed that I’m not thinking all that clearly right now. Plus, with the headache and all… 

So I lie still and start to drift off and suddenly something hits me. Something I noticed earlier but didn’t really notice, notice because of the nauseous, headache, panicking at the thought of sleeping with my boss thing. Did you pick up on it? …My pants are neatly folded over a chair with my bra draped over them, my shoes, purse, and all my jewelry except my ring are on the table next to the chair.

Ring?


	2. Atlantic City

Ring? Ring? RING?

I close my eyes tightly and feel for Josh’s left hand, which is resting against my stomach. Please don’t have a ring on… please don’t have a ring on…please don’t have… he has a ring on.

I pick up my left hand and stare at the ring on my finger. It’s hideous. I mean, it’s bad. It’s gold-plated I think, but the gold color is more of a yellow. It shouldn’t be long before my finger starts turning green. It’s got a rather large, obviously fake square diamond in it, but the square isn’t exactly square. The craftsmanship…well, leaves a little to be desired. 

Am I having a nightmare? Wake-up Donna. I pick up Josh’s hand and stare at the ring on his finger. It’s as tacky as mine, with the same hideous design and yellowy color to it. They must’ve been a pair. So, this little piece of information would lead me to believe that we did in fact… no, I’m not quite ready to say it.

I’m going to have to wake him up. I’ve got to see what he remembers. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong before, not often, but occasionally. Maybe there’s a logical explanation to this. There must be something I’m missing. Something that the hangover and headache and lack of sleep are prohibiting me from remembering. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING!

“Josh,” I whisper. No need to yell, this is not his fault. Oh, who am I kidding, this is most assuredly his fault. He doesn’t budge.

“Josh,” I whisper a little more harshly. His only response is to pull me closer to him and nudge my neck with his nose. Well that felt nice. 

“Josh, wake-up,” I finally say in my normal voice while elbowing him lightly in the side.

“Hmm…” he says, rolling onto his back. I roll over onto my other side so I’m next to him looking down at him. He’s yawning and obviously fighting consciousness. It’s very cute.

“I need you to wake-up, Josh,” I say, putting my hand on his chest and lightly shaking it. That felt nice too.

He cracks one eye open and looks at me, then grins. Not the dimples, not now, I have to concentrate. Such nice dimples. “Morning,” he says in a sleepy, low, very sexy voice. Good Lord, Donna. Get a grip.

“Good morning. How ya feelin’?”

“Head hurts,” he says, closing his eyes again.

“There’s Tylenol on the nightstand.”

“You’re amazing.” I’m what? Amazing? We did have sex? I’m so confused.

“Amazing?” I kind of croak out.

“You brought me Tylenol.” Oh, ok. I’m amazing because of the Tylenol, not the sex. Well, I am amazing at sex, but he doesn’t know that. I think. Right?

“Josh, sit up and take the Tylenol. We have to talk and I need you to make sense.”

“K,” he says, sitting up a little and taking a few pills. Then he rubs his eyes and looks around the room. This is when it hits him. I know, because the expression on his face matches the way I felt when I realized it. “Donna?”

“Yes?”

“Why are we in bed together?” he asks in his squeaky voice, while holding his head with his hand.

Because we’re married. I don’t think I’m gonna spring that on him right away. “That’s a very good question.”

He looks at me through squinted eyes and then picks up the blanket and looks underneath. This is like watching myself just a few minutes before. “You’re wearing clothes.”

“Yes, so are you.”

“You checked?”

“You checked.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m a man!”

“Is that supposed to be an excuse?”

Instead of answering, he glares at me. “So, did we…” he asks, waiving his arm between us.

Get married? I think so. “Have sex? I don’t think so.”

“But we are in bed together?” he asks just to make sure, I guess.

“That we are.”

He shakes his head a little. “I’m confused.” 

Welcome to the club. “What do you remember about last night?”

He shrugs. “Lots of tequila, you?” 

I shake my head. “That’s about it.”

He looks at me and sneaks back down into the bed. “My head hurts. I need sleep. I’ll remember more when I’ve had more sleep.” As he says this, he puts his arm around me and pulls me half on top of him. I should resist, yet I don’t. 

“Do you think this is the best idea?”

“Let’s sleep. We’ll talk when we get up,” he says back in his sleepy voice as his right hand finds its way into my hair and his left hand holds my hand on his chest. I can’t help but sigh.

I find myself dozing off on his incredible chest. It’s just so strong and warm and… focus Donna, focus. “Josh.” Well that sounded more like a moan than a word.

“Shh… we’re sleeping,” he whispers.

“Ok, but I think you should know that we might have gotten married last night.”

“Kay…” he drifts off. I start counting the seconds it takes him to comprehend what I just said. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one, “What?” he says calmly.

Well, at least he didn’t freak out. I’ll give him that. I freaked out a little when I realized it, I admit. I prop my chin up on his chest and look at him. I really don’t see any reason to move off his chest. I am married to the man; there should be some perks, right? “Apparently I cancelled my room last night and had all my stuff moved in here.”

“Ok?”

“And…” here goes. “We’re both wearing wedding rings,” I say very quietly.

He immediately pulls his hand out of my hair and looks at it. “I’m not wearing a ring.”

“That’s your right hand.” He looks down at me and then picks up our hands that are linked on his chest.

“You’re not wearing a ring.”

”That’s my right hand.”

“What?” Poor thing. He’s so hung over. I pull my left hand out from under my pillow and show it to him.

“Where did these come from?” 

“I have no idea.”

“That’s pretty ugly,” he says, holding my left hand in his right and studying the ring.

“So I noticed.”

“We can do better than that.”

“What?”

“Really. I’m may be a government employee, but I can afford a better ring than that.”

“Right. Uh, Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“We may be married. Married. We might have gotten drunk and then married. I think the hideous rings are the least of our problems, don’t you?”

“I’m just saying.”

“And I’m just saying what are we going to do?”

He shrugs. “We could always consummate…”

“Josh!” I yell, hitting him in the chest.

“It was just an idea,” he says, chuckling. This has got to be the most bizarre conversation of my life.

“In the future, try to make those ideas helpful.”

“Fine, here’s a helpful idea. We’re tired, we’re hung over, and we’re obviously confused. Let’s get some sleep and see what we remember when we’re actually awake. Then we’ll come up with a plan.”

And can we stay all comfy like this? “Sleep and then a plan?”

“That’s my idea, and I’m very smart. You’ve married well.”

“Oh, have I?”

“Yes.” I can’t help smiling at him. How does he do this? We’re married, which I thought would freak him out. Instead, he wants to sleep and consummate. And why didn’t I agree to the consummation thing? I should’ve thought that through.

“Fine. Sleep and then a plan. But first, go brush your teeth. Your breath… not so good.”

“Fine.” He crawls out from underneath me, which my body doesn’t care for at all, and goes into the bathroom. While he’s in there, I call down to room service and ask them to deliver toast and coffee at 7:30, and then I set the alarm. Two hours of sleep, that’s all we get.

When he comes back from the bathroom, he goes to the dresser and picks up his watch to check the time, I guess. This is when he finds the next piece of evidence to support the ‘got married’ theory. This evidence comes in the form of a marriage certificate. He stares at it for a second and then hands it to me before crawling back into bed.

“Well, I guess the ‘might have’ part’s been answered,” I say, looking at the document with our illegible handwriting. But as drunk as we were last night, I’m guess we’re lucky to recognize the D, M, J, and L.

“I guess so,” he says, taking the certificate from me and putting it on the nightstand. Then he rolls onto his back, pulls me back on top of him, and puts his hand back in my hair. This time, however, he plays with it just a little bit, going between running his fingers through it and massaging my scalp. I can’t believe it when I hear myself say, “Mmm…that feels nice,” in a seductive voice. Donnatella Moss, that is not helping.

“Yeah,” he says in a very husky sexy voice. “It does.” That’s when I notice that I’m tracing patterns on his chest with my fingers. I should stop that, shouldn’t I? I don’t.


	3. Atlantic City

The alarm goes off at 7:20 and Josh reaches over and tries to turn it off. It’s not the one he’s used to, and he has no patience, so after about thirty seconds of attempting it, he reaches down and unplugs it from the wall.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he says.

“You’re having fun with this, aren’t you?” I ask, eyes still closed, head resting on his chest, right hand somewhere down near his waste, right leg straddling his.

“You don’t look like you’re suffering too much yourself,” he says, his fingers dancing up and down my spine slowly. Suffering? No. It’s possible this is the most comfortable I’ve been in my life.

I drag my right hand up his abs to his chest and trace patterns on him with my fingernails, and then prop my chin up on him and look at him. “Somehow, I’m managing,” I say with innocent eyes.

He smiles at me and our eyes lock, and for once in our lives, neither of us breaks the moment and looks away. I pick my head up off his chest and he traces my jaw and then my lips with his thumb, then rolls us over so I’m underneath him, and I’ve decided I was wrong before. This is the most comfortable I’ve been in my life. 

He brushes a stray piece of hair away from my face with the tips of his fingers and looks at me with this look in his eyes that I’ve never seen before, and suddenly it’s hard to breathe. He leans down, his lips centimeters from mine and … there’s a knock at the door? You’ve got to be kidding me! 

When he hears the knock, Josh gets the look of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or you, the look of a boss about to get it on with the employee he accidentally married. “CJ and Toby,” he whispers.

“Toast and coffee,” I whisper back, smiling. Then I pull out from underneath him and sit up. “I’m going to restroom, answer the door.” 

“But…” Now he has this pitiful look on his face and he’s gesturing between the two of us.

“Go,” I tell him, smiling as I get up and walk into the bathroom. I need to regroup.

I walk into the restroom and stare at myself in the mirror. This is not good. Let me rephrase that, because that was definitely good. This is not smart. Kissing Josh, making-out with Josh, certainly sleeping with Josh is not going to make this any easier. Nothing has changed. Nothing. He’s still my boss, I’m still his employee, and we still have two and a half years left in office. We have to end this, and we both know it. Letting anything physical get in the way now would be like getting married because you’re pregnant. You don’t accidentally get married and then decide you might as well have sex. That’s not the way it works. 

I need to focus. And not on the way his eyes smoldered when he looked at me. And not on the way his thumb felt against my lips. And not on the way it felt so completely right to lie underneath him. And not on the way his voice took on this completely different sound. Damn it; there I go focusing on the wrong things again.

I splash some cold water on my face and brush my hair again, then walk back into the bedroom. Josh is sitting at the small table in the room pouring coffee for the two of us; he might also be staring at my bra. I walk to the table and sit in the chair across from him, blocking his view of said bra. He hands me a cup of coffee and the look in his eyes is different, as though while I was in the bathroom making decisions and talking myself into being smart, he was out here doing the same thing. I’m a bit sad to see that he came to the same conclusions I did.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, drinking coffee and eating dry toast. “So,” I finally say. “What’s the plan?”

He sighs and stands up. “We need to find out what the annulment laws in New Jersey are,” he says in a kind of defeated voice, pacing back and forth in front of me.

I grab the hotel stationary and start taking notes. “How long the process takes, what can be used as grounds for annulment.”

“Do we have to appear in person, how quiet can it be kept.” I nod and jot it down.

“We should probably find out where we were married and by whom. We might need them to document to how drunk we were.”

“Yeah, and we’re going to have to talk to CJ at some point. Were she and Toby there?”

“I have no idea, but we’re having brunch with them at eleven,” I say standing up and following him around the small room.

“Let’s see how far we get before then. I want to have a handle on this before getting my ass chewed out.”

“I should get my own room,” I say quietly, looking towards the corner of my room at my suitcase.

“Not yet. We’re going to need to work together. I brought my laptop, we’re going to have to make phone calls, I need you here.”

I nod, but then say, “No more married activities.” Touching each other does not help.

He looks at me and then down at the ground. “Agreed.”

“Ok,” I say sighing. “I’m going to take a shower. I wreak like smoke.”

“I’m going to look over the marriage certificate. See if I can find anything on it that can clue us in to where we got married.”

“See if you can read the writing of whoever signed it,” I say, heading into the shower.

I walk back into the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror again. I liked the married activities much more than the annulment activities, stupid or not. For a minute, it felt safe out there. Brainstorming, pacing, taking notes, feeding off each other, it felt like any other day in the office. But then, it just felt sad. My life, our lives, being layed out like a business plan. Quite frankly, it sucked.

I sit on the edge of the tub to turn the water on, but instead, I just sit there staring at the faucet for I don’t know how long. I already miss the things I was focusing on earlier. I close my eyes and allow myself to take it all in one more time. The way his arms felt so strong around me, the feel of his fingertips on my spine, the beating of his heart under my cheek, his hand holding mine while he stared at these pitiful rings, the rapid breathing when he rolled us over and the exquisite feel of his hips against mine. I’ve never felt that way before in my life, and we didn’t even kiss.

I take a deep breath and start to take off my shirt, but then I remember my bag out in the room. The last thing we need is me coming out into the bedroom wet, wearing only a towel. I’ve got to get it now. It’s hard to actually make my feet move, so I sit there for another minute before actually standing up and opening the bathroom door. When I do open it, Josh is standing directly on the other side.

I stare at him for what feels like an hour. “I…I forgot my bag,” I say, completely out of breath.

“Yeah.” I look down in his hand and he’s holding it. I reach for it, but just as my hand touches it, he lets it fall to the floor and the next thing I know, I’m up against the sink and Josh is kissing me. So much for the no more married activities rule.

This kiss is… unexplainable. It’s slow but still hungry, forceful but still tender, so deep but not deep enough, and it feels like it will never end but will leave me wanting more. And at the same time, it’s a kiss of things to come and things that can never be. It’s a kiss that I can only share with him, because we’re not just kissing, we’re communicating. And we’re saying things that only the two of us could understand.

And then I feel myself being lifted and I’m sitting on the sink, and my legs spread and he’s standing between them but our lips still haven’t broken contact. We stop kissing every now and then to breathe, but our lips stay connected and we pant against each other until we’re both breathing fairly normally, then our tongues begin searching again. It’s incredible.

Minutes, maybe hours later, I have no idea, I feel his hands on my sides, under my shirt and when he grazes my breasts, we both moan, and then he’s lifting my shirt over my head and our lips part for the first time.

We look at each other for several seconds, but neither one of us says a thing for fear of ruining the moment. And then my shirt is gone and Josh’s attention shifts down to my breasts. He still doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t touch them, he just stares, and I swear I’ve never felt more beautiful in my life. Finally, I reach forward and hold his face in my palms and he looks up at me and our gazes lock. And then, he leans in and kisses me again.

While we’re kissing, I feel his palms on my breasts, his fingertips on my nipples, his thumbs massaging my flesh, and it feels absolutely amazing. I need him closer to me, so I wrap my legs around his waist and draw him in closer and now I can feel his erection between us and we’re both moaning again. 

And then I’m moving. Josh’s arms are around my back squeezing me tight to him and he’s carrying me somewhere, hopefully to the bed. I grip him tighter with my thighs and hang on, but still, our lips don’t pull apart from each other even once. 

Finally, he puts me down on the bed and leans over me, still kissing me and now I’m tugging on his shirt, pulling it as far as I can while still keeping attached to his mouth, and since I can’t get it any higher and I’m not willing to let his lips go, I start working on the tie to his pajama bottoms. He’s still standing, so once the tie is loose, they fall to the floor and I push his boxers over his hips and they follow. Then he lies down on top of me and he rolls us over. 

He sits up and I stand, but not so far up that we break lip contact, and somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder if our lips might be glued together, but then I feel his hand in the elastic of the sweats I’m wearing and in one motion, he has both the sweats and my underwear down at my ankles. I step out of them and lay back down on top of him and oh… I have to get his shirt off him.

He rolls us again, so that he’s on top, and I start tugging on the shirt again. This time, he actually pulls away from my mouth, for only the second time since this all started and I can’t help thinking that if we’d been wearing button-down shirts, our lips would never have parted. But this time, when they do, I get his shirt over his head and then his lips are back on mine and we’re connected from head to toe with nothing between us, and I’m certain this is where I was meant to be. 

This kissing continues and continues and continues, and I start thinking that maybe we should be paying attention to other parts of the body, like the neck, collarbone, earlobes, chest… but we can’t seem to let go of each other’s lips, and although under different circumstances I might feel a bit neglected, right now I don’t. Because right here, right now, Josh and I are making up for six years of missed kisses… late nights at the office, red lights comments, celebrated victories, suffered defeats, physical pain, emotional highs, emotional lows, dances, tuxedos, bow ties, formal dresses, Christmas gifts, anniversaries… every kiss there should have been is happening right now, and I don’t want my lips anywhere else. 

I kid you not, we’ve been kissing for I’m guessing a solid hour before it occurs to either one of us that we’re naked and we got on this bed for reasons other than kissing. But finally, ever so slowly, Josh pulls his lips from mine and stares at me. Neither of us has said a word since the kissing started in the bathroom, and this is only the third time our lips have lost total contact, but he just stares at me with a questioning look on his face. I smile at him and nod, and then we’re making love and it’s the most intimate experience of my life.

Afterwards, we’re lying on our sides, facing each other, and he’s running his fingertips over my face, my jaw and my lips. We aren’t quite ready to lose contact yet, because we both know that once we get up from this spot, we’re going to have to do that research and make those phone calls and get that annulment, and the fact that we just made love doesn’t change any of those things. We’re smiling at each other, but our smiles are sad, and finally he whispers, “Two and a half years.”

I close my eyes and fight tears that have been pooled there since this began. “And not a second longer,” I whisper back.

“Marry me.”

“Josh…”

“I mean it. President Bartlet leaves office January 19, 2006. The ceremony will be around ten. Marry me at noon.”

Well, that does it, the tears are no longer pooled in my eyes, they’re now streaming down my cheeks. Still, I manage a smile. “What if you work for the new guy?”

He smiles back at me and wipes tears from my face with his thumb. “He’ll just have to do without me for the rest of the day.” And then we’re kissing again.


	4. Atlantic City

“What time is it?” 

“I don’t know; you unplugged the clock.”

“Yes, that sounds vaguely familiar.”

“We can’t stay in bed all day.”

“You keep saying that, yet you don’t get up.” This is true. I do keep saying it, and yet I do nothing to get up. Because things go back to normal when we get off this bed. Neither one of us says it, but we both know it’s true. And after what just happened, we’re both extremely reluctant for things to go back to normal.

“Because you’re warm. And cuddly. You’ve trapped me here with your warmth and cuddliness.”

“It’s my fault then?” 

“Yes.”

“Well, I gladly take the blame for this,” he says, kissing my forehead. We’re back to the me lying on top of him thing. Except that this time, we’re both naked, which makes it that much more enjoyable. We’re also clinging to each other in near desperation.

“Just remember that when we’re talking to CJ and Toby at brunch.”

“CJ…Toby.”

I can hear the sadness in his voice as he says their names. “Now you’re thinking we need to get up.”

“Sadly, yes.”

I sigh and kiss him one more time. This kiss is different. He holds my face in his hands and our lips barely touch in a very gentle yet lingering kiss. When we part, I smile at him and get up, taking the sheet with me, wrapping it around my body and taking one last look at naked Josh. He is my husband, after all. Then I search through my purse for my cell phone. “10:22.”

“10:22?” he asks while slipping on his boxers.

“Yes.”

“Didn’t we start that around 7:30?” he asks, pointing to the bed.

“7:45ish, yeah.”

He nods and raises his eyebrows, clearly impressed with himself. “Damn.”

I can’t help laughing at that. His ego is, well, quite sexy. “There was a lot of kissing before the actual...”

“Ahh, yes. I liked the kissing.” 

I raise my eyebrows. “I liked it all, now go get in the shower. I’m starting research.” 

He smiles at me and goes into the bathroom, and I start feeling better. That was Josh and Donna banter there in its truest form. I was a little worried that we would struggle getting back there, it’s nice to know I can count on that while we figure this whole mess out. I fire up the computer and start researching annulments in New Jersey. I try not to look at the scene of the crime, but occasionally I find myself staring at the indention in his pillow on the bed. I need professional help. 

“What’ve you got?” he asks when he emerges ten minutes later. He looks better. In fact, he looks sexy. Wet and clean and sexy and… Donna Moss, do not go there.

“New Jersey has two types of annulments, totally void and voidable. I don’t think we’re going to qualify for the totally void one,” I say, reading from the website I’ve found.

”Why not?”

“Bigamy and blood relatives.”

His face scrunches up like a four year-old’s does when given liver for dinner. “That’s disgusting. What about the other one?”

“Age of consent, the parties did not intend to marry, or incapacitation such as insanity, intoxication, fraud, or duress.”

“Intoxication, that’s us. Are we going to need a lawyer, or can we do it on our own?”

“It must be popular. There’s a form to get started here online, but we can’t print it without the front desk seeing it. We’re gonna have to go to the courthouse and fill it out, and we’re gonna have to go today, it’s Friday. They won’t be open tomorrow.”

“But, my poker tournament,” he whines. He and Toby signed up for a poker tournament today while CJ and I booked a day at the spa. We planned this weekend trip three months ago, and we’ve had to reschedule it twice.

“Listen, mister. I have a day in the spa planned. A massage, a pedicure, a manicure, a facial, and a chocolate wrap, with fondue. Six hours of heaven on earth. But this takes priority. You’re gonna have to throw your game.”

“But if I lose right away, Toby’ll make fun of me forever.” That’s very true. Toby will go far in the tournament; he’s very good. I think it’s because he has no facial expressions.

“Better than him killing you, don’t you think?”

“I’m not sure,” he mumbles, making me laugh.

“I’m getting in the shower. See if you can figure anything out about that marriage certificate.”

“Got it.” He gives me a mock salute and I grab my bag and head into the bathroom.

I’ve been in the shower for all of about three minutes when I hear the bathroom door open. “Josh?” He cannot do this. I cannot be this close to him when one of us is naked. 

“What do you remember about last night?” he asks from just outside the curtain.

“Josh. This isn’t a good idea.”

“We’re meeting CJ and Toby for brunch in twenty minutes. Don’t you think we should have our story straight? Anyway, we’ve got to do this for two and a half years, we might as well start now.” 

I take a deep breath and we spend the next ten minutes trying to piece together the events of last night. All we come up with is dancing at a club in Trump Plaza, Toby daring all of us to keep up with him in tequila shots, some red headed bimbo hitting on Josh, a gomer hitting on me, more tequila, CJ in the mood for ice cream, and something about Toby telling Josh it was bed time. 

********** 

“Should we tell them?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“We’re going to have to eventually.”

“Not necessarily.”

“What if they know? They’re gonna be pissed.”

“If they know, they’ll tell us. We won’t have to bring it up, I guarantee it.”

“Good point.”

********** 

Here I sit, attempting to be social and eat breakfast, but all I can think about is the elevator ride down here. See, we were on our way to meet CJ and Toby for breakfast when I noticed that both Josh and I were wearing our wedding rings. Then, I almost broke down in tears when we took them off. I know they’re hideous, but I’ve grown attached to them. I tried to be strong, but that just meant that my bottom lip stuck out and quivered, and Josh is very uncomfortable with my pouty lips. That’s what I blame for the kissing that took place in said elevator. Out of desperation, he put his hands on my face and pulled me in for a very short, very chaste kiss, which turned into a not so chaste kiss, which turned into a make-out session that never should’ve happened in a public place.

Anyway, here we are at breakfast, where CJ, Josh, and I are far too ill to eat any real food, but Toby has no problems eating fried eggs, bacon, sausage, and hash browns right in front of us. I could be ill just watching him. I’m forced to lie about loud neighbors being the reason I’m no longer checked in as a guest, and CJ and Toby offer no clues as to what took place last night. The good news, of course, is that they don’t remember the wedding. If they did, we would’ve heard about it, I’m sure.

After breakfast CJ and I head down to the spa where we’ve booked an entire day of pampering; it’s going to be glorious…for CJ. Josh is going down fast in the first round of his tournament and will be calling me soon after with a “work emergency” so we can get to the courthouse to fill out the we-accidentally-got-drunk-and-married-and-now-we-want-to-take-last-night-back paperwork. This ought to be fun.

So, I get “the call” and make up an excuse of a conference call that could last a while, telling CJ that I’ll be back when I can. It doesn’t take much to convince her to continue without me, and I throw my clothes back on and head up to the room of sin.

“What took you so long?” is the first thing he asks when I get up there.

I glare at him. Let’s face it; I’m going to blame him for as much of this as possible. “I was naked and being massaged. I had to re-dress.” When I say this, his eyes gawk out of his head and I can only imagine the perverted things going through his mind.

“Was CJ there too?”

Men. “Yes, of course. She was getting massaged next to me.” This is fun. His face is all distorted, like he’s trying to actually see this.

“And you were both…” he starts gesturing with his hand.

“You are sick and perverted, you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Can we get on with this?”

Now his eyes bug out of his head again. “Yes. Wait. Yes. I thought you said we couldn’t.”

What is he talking about? “There’s no way around it, we have to.”

“Do we have time?” he asks, taking his shoes off. I think he’s lost his mind.

“We have to hurry. What are you doing?” Why is he unbuttoning his pants? Is he changing clothes?

“What?” He looks up at me and then down at his feet. “We don’t have time to take everything off? That’s fine. I can work around clothes,” he says as he starts walking towards me with a… is that a seductive look on his face? I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing.

“Josh, what are we talking about?”

“Don’t you know?” he asks in a low, husky voice as his hands circle my waist.

“Well, I’m talking about going to the courthouse…”

“Yeah, that’s why we have to hurry,” he says, kissing my neck.

“Umm…” Wow, that feels nice. “I meant…”

“Yeah?” he asks, taking my earlobe in his mouth. This is the first time his lips have ventured to parts of my body other than my lips. It’s…what was I talking about? 

“We…I…” Why am I unbuttoning his shirt? This is not helping.

“Mmm?” There goes my shirt. And his. And my bra. Now his mouth is on one of my breasts and his hand is on the other. I need to sit down. Or lie down. Or something. Wasn’t I going to stop this? Why would I do that? 

“This is the last time,” I breathe out.

“Definitely,” he says, dropping to his knees and kissing my stomach as he starts working on the button of my jeans. I’m just gonna stop thinking now.


	5. Atlantic City

“It’s 3:00, we have to go,” I say, lying completely still.

“I know, just ten more minutes,” he says in a low voice, kissing my neck as he holds me from behind.

“You said that ten minutes ago.” 

“Yes.” 

“And ten minutes before that.”

“Yes,” he says, pulling me closer to him.

“And ten minutes before that.”

“No, that time it was you.”

“Right.”

“What if…”

“Josh.”

“I know.” He kisses my shoulder once more and then rolls to his back and gets out of bed. I watch him move about the room picking up clothes that were strewn about an hour and a half or so ago. His body is quite fantastic for a man his age with his job, his eating habits, and his exorcize regime. In fact, his body is quite fantastic for a man half his age with good eating habits and a daily exorcize regime.

I stand up and stretch my arms over my head. I’m extremely relaxed and my body feels pretty much like Jell-O; I could have stayed in bed the rest of the day. I try to put that thought out of my head and pull my arms back down and open my eyes. Josh is staring at me like I’m some sort of Greek goddess, which makes me blush. And when I blush, I blush everywhere. “No staring, Josh.”

“You were staring first.” He has a very good point.

I nod and start putting on my clothes. “I’m getting my own room when we get back. We can’t keep having this… problem.”

He steps into his jeans. This man can wear jeans like very few other people. “This time was your fault. You said we could.”

I smile and pull my shirt over my head. “Actually, I was talking about going to the courthouse.”

“Which is why we had to hurry.” An hour and a half? He calls that hurrying? His idea of foreplay could last all day. We’re going to have to test that theory out in about two and a half years.

“When I said we had to hurry, I meant to the courthouse.” I grab a brush and comb through my hair.

“But I came over there, and…” he points to the scene of our last crime.

“See, that was your fault, because you started doing that thing to my neck and ear.”

“Ahh… so you weren’t trying to turn me on with the whole naked massage in the same room with CJ thing?”

“Not so much, no.” 

“Hmm… guess I misjudged that one.”

“Guess so.” I grab my purse and the marriage certificate, and Josh takes our rings from his pants pocket, puts his on and hands me mine. I put mine on as well, deciding not to spend any time trying to figure that one out, and off we go to the wonderful wizard of Atlantic City.

When we get to the courthouse, we walk up to the lady at the front desk of the Marriage/Divorce division and calmly explain our situation. We leave out certain details… the White House, both acts of consummation, and the already engaged again details to be exact.

Apparently, Lara here has heard our story once or twice before, because she hands us a clipboard and goes back to her computer work as though nothing happened. We head over to the corner of the room to fill it out.

I do most of the form without Josh’s help, but hand it to him when I’m done to fill in his side of what happened. “You put my social security number down here,” he says, looking at the form.

“Yes.”

“You know my social security number?” He looks at me like he can’t believe I could possibly know that. Like I randomly wrote a number on the form and it just happened to be his social security number. 

“Apparently.” 

“How do you know my social security number?”

I look at him like he’s an idiot. An idiot that I adore and wouldn’t mind taking into the nearest closet, but an idiot none-the-less. “Are you serious with this question? I know your social security number, you driver’s license number, the pin number to your ATM card, your Visa and MasterCard numbers, including their expiration dates and 3-digit codes on the back, and all your frequent flyer mileage numbers, not to mention your address, your mother’s address, your license plate, and the user name and password you use on any internet sites that require them.”

His eyes get bigger and bigger the more I speak. “By heart?” he squeaks.

I wiggle my eyebrows at him. “Does that scare you?”

“A little.”

“Good.”

Josh finishes filling out the form for the annulment and we take it back up to not so friendly Lara at the desk. She takes it from us and starts typing in information. Had I known she was just going to type it in, I would’ve told her to move over and typed it from the beginning.

While she’s typing, Josh gets fidgety. Big surprise, I know. “How long will this take?”

She looks up at him with an evil glare. “About five minutes.”

“I meant the annulment process.”

“A few weeks.”

“Will we need to come back for it?”

“No, if you’re approved for annulment, you’ll receive notification in the mail.” She looks over at me. “You’re not suing for alimony or child support, right?”

For a marriage of one day? “No.” 

She pointedly looks at my ring. “Didn’t think so.” This makes me laugh.

Josh looks at me and then back at the woman defensively. “We were drunk. Sober, I would’ve gotten a much better ring.”

“Uh huh,” she says doubtfully. I put my hand over my mouth and look down at the desk.

“I have very good taste,” he says a little loud.

I reach over and put my hand on his to calm him. “Josh. She doesn’t care about your taste.”

“But…”

“Josh, please don’t fight with the woman who’s in charge of our annulment.”

“Yes, Josh,” says Lara. “Listen to your wife.” Wife. I like that. It has a nice ring to it. Focus, Donna.

“She’s not in charge, the judge is,” he mumbles. I’m going to kill him. Lara over here’s going to wait until we leave and that annulment form is going to disappear. 

“Joshua,” I say, giving him a death glare. “Has working with me for the last five and a half years not taught you anything about who’s really in charge of things?”

He looks at her and then at me and then back at her, and suddenly he looks a little frightened. “I’m sorry,” he says to her. “Would you like something to drink? There’s a soda machine down the hall. I could run and get you one.”

Lara looks at me and nods, obviously impressed. “No thanks, I’m fine. I do need your marriage certificate though.”

I pull it out of my purse and hand it to her. She looks at it and looks back at me. “Where did you get married?”

I shrug. “We don’t remember much about last night. We just found that this morning, along with our rings.”

“You have no idea?” I shake my head and she looks at Josh.

“We don’t know. We were hoping the certificate would be enough.” 

“Do you have a receipt for the chapel?”

Josh looks through his wallet. “No. I might be able to get one from my credit card company, assuming I paid by credit card. Do we need it?” 

“You might want to get it,” she says to him, typing into the computer again.

“Can we start the process without it? We’re only in town for the weekend,” I ask her.

“Well…” she looks up at us and gives us a small smile. Yes! We’ve won her over. “Hold on for one minute,” she says, standing up and walking into a door behind her desk.

As soon as she’s gone, I turn to Josh and whisper harshly, “We should’ve been tracking down the chapel instead of…”

“Of what?”

“Consummating!” I scream whisper.

“I only get to be married to you for one day. Did you really think I’d waste it on the phone trying to find a wedding chapel when I could be making love to you,” he scream whispers back.

“Well, fine,” I spit out.

“Fine.” After that, it gets eerily quiet as we both stare at the empty desk in front of us.

I take several deep breaths, but then I can’t help myself. “I’m going to kiss you now."

“Oh, thank God,” he breathes out before pulling me to him and kissing me right there in the Marriage/Divorce department of the courthouse. Immediately, my hands go around his neck and my fingers play with the curls on the back of his neck, and his hands go around my waist, pulling me as close to him as he can. 

We continue kissing until we hear Lara clear her throat. Even then, we kiss for several more seconds before pulling apart from each other and looking at her apologetically. 

“Mr. and Mrs…” she says, sitting back down at her desk.

“Yes?” I ask, motioning to Josh to wipe the lipstick off his mouth.

“This is a false certificate,” she says, holding up our marriage certificate.

“Excuse me?”

“This is a fake. I don’t know where you got married, but you got ripped off. This isn’t a New Jersey marriage certificate.” She pulls a piece of paper out of a stack of papers on her desk. “This is what a New Jersey marriage certificate looks like. Yours is a fraud. Whoever married you ripped you off.”


	6. Atlantic City

“What do you mean, it’s a fraud?” Josh practically screams at the woman.

“I mean, it’s a fraud,” she snaps back at him, having learned early on how to handle Josh Lyman. If I ever quit, I’m calling her and offering her my job.

I put my hand on his arm to calm him down, but talk to Lara. “So we need to find out where we were married and get the correct copy, right?”

She looks at me like I’m in some sort of shock and calmly says, “There is no correct copy. You’re not married.”

“What?” Great, now I sound like Josh.

“Of course we’re married, we have rings,” he says, waving his hand in front of her.

“This happens,” she says casually. “We get a few of these a month. Two completely drunk people get in a cab and ask to be taken to a chapel. The cabby tells them he has a friend who’s a judge and can do it cheap if they pay in cash. They agree and he takes them to a friend’s house, sells them crappy rings, performs a fake ceremony and prints out a certificate. The people are too drunk to remember the details.”

“This happens?” screams Josh. “And you don’t do anything about it?”

“This isn’t the police department. And no, they don’t do anything about it. What can they do? Can you i.d. the guy?” she asks sarcastically. He opens his mouth to yell at her, but then shuts it and looks to me for help.

I turn to Lara. “Are you sure we weren’t legally married and just given the wrong certificate?”

“Married by Arthur Van Delay? Haven’t you ever seen Seinfeld?”

“Seinfeld?”

“Art Van Delay. George and Jerry made him up in the first season. He’s an architect, then he owns a latex company, then he’s an importer/exporter. And in the last episode, he’s a judge.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Josh asks her like she’s lost her mind.

“I’m talking about the fact that your marriage certificate was signed by a non-existent television character and you were ripped off and you’re not married and you haven’t quite seemed to grasp it.”

“Listen Lady, we’re married. We’ve got rings, we’ve got a hotel room, we’ve consummated…twice.”

“Josh!!!” I yell.

“Sorry,” he says, taking my hand. Then he looks at me and talks so quietly that I’m sure even Lara can’t hear him. “I just…”

“I know,” I whisper back, squeezing his hand.

He stares at me for several seconds and then turns back to Lara. “I’m sorry. It’s been a confusing day.”

She nods and offers him a small smile. “I’m sure it has.”

“So, we’re not married,” I say quietly, looking down at our joined hands.

“No,” she replies, looking at us holding onto each other. “This is good news, right?” she asks.

I look up at her. “Good news?” I ask quietly, in a daze.

“You’re not married, so you don’t have to have an annulment.”

“Right,” Josh says sadly. “Good news.” She hands us our fake certificate and we leave the courthouse.

Neither of us says anything as we wait for a cab, and once we’re inside, we just sit close to each other and stare out our respective windows, fingers still laced together. Finally, the silence becomes too much and Josh says in an overly cheery voice, “We’re gonna get back in time for you to get some of your spa day in.”

“Yeah,” I say, still looking out the window.

He keeps up the cheery pretence. “We’re having dinner with CJ and Toby tonight, right?”

“At eight,” and even to myself, my voice sounds a million miles away.

“Donna,” he says in a gravely voice, and I close my eyes. I can’t look at him; looking at him right now might just kill me.

So instead, I try to sound cheery too. “And I can’t wait. All we’ve had to eat today is toast, I’m getting hungry.”

“Donna,” he says the same way, breaking my resolve.

I shake my head but keep my head turned away. “It’s stupid.” I can hear my voice starting to quiver and I try to take a deep breath.

“It’s not stupid.”

“We we’re going there to annul the damn thing anyway,” I say angrily as the first tears escape and run down my cheeks.

“But…” he says quietly, prompting me to say something. I just shake my head and look at my lap. He leans over and picks my chin up so that I’m looking at him. “But…”

“But now it’s like none of it happened,” I whisper as the tears fall down my face. He pulls me into his chest and rocks me back and forth.

“It happened,” he says quietly, stroking my hair.

“But…”

He takes my face in his hands and pulls me up so I’m level with his face, wiping my tears away with his thumbs. “It happened, Donna.”

I stare down at his chest. “I feel like I lost something I never even had,” I whisper.

“I’m right here,” he says, bringing my hand to his lips and kissing it softly.

“But you’re not mine,” I says through sobs, looking back at his face.

“I’ve always been yours,” he whispers, looking me directly in the eyes. I look at him for several seconds, then put my head back on his chest and he holds me close, neither one of us talking for the rest of the ride.

When we get to the hotel, I walk up to the front desk. Josh doesn’t question; he just follows. “I need a room, please.”

The man at the front desk looks at me and then behind me at Josh. If I look as bad as Josh does right now, this guy must think someone died. “For how many nights, ma’am?”

“Two.” I hand him my credit card and fill out the appropriate information, then take my key and Josh and I head upstairs, still silent. 

When we get to his room, I start gathering my things together and Josh goes into the restroom. He comes out a few minutes later and I go in and look at myself in the mirror. My face is red and blotchy, and my eyes are puffy and bloodshot. I wash my face, then get my toothbrush and shampoo and go out to the bedroom, put everything in my bag and walk to the door.

Just as I reach the door to leave, Josh takes my garment bag from my shoulder and my carry on bag from my hand. “I’ll walk you to your room,” he says quietly. 

I look up at him and try to smile, but I can’t manage it. “Thanks,” I finally whisper.

We walk back down the hall to the elevators, and once we’re inside, I look down at my hand and stare at my ring. I take a deep breath and take it off, putting it in my pocket. Josh stares at me the whole time, then sets my carry-on bag down and does the same thing. Then he picks up my left hand and kisses my ring finger lightly. 

When we get to my floor, we both get off the elevator and walk down the hall towards room 5645. When we get there, I open the door and take a step inside, then turn to get my things from Josh. I take them from his hand and sit them down inside the door, then turn back and thank him once again.

“You’re welcome,” he says quietly, staring at me.

“I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Yeah,” he says and turns around to go. But then he turns back and puts his hand on my cheek and I have to close my eyes to keep from crying again. “It happened,” he whispers and I turn my head and kiss his palm, keeping my eyes closed.

Then his hand is gone and I lean my head back against the door, assuming he’s left, until I feel his lips touch mine so softly that I think for a second I must be imagining it. But then I feel his breath on my face and his hand cupping my cheek again, his thumb running over my cheekbone. And then he kisses me again and I feel myself floating or falling or something, and I’m kissing him back.

This kiss is so different, so chaste, so innocent, so pure. And we stand there in the hallway where anyone could walk by and see us, kissing that way for what feels like an eternity. His hands are on my face and my hands are on his face, my thumb in the crevice that becomes a dimple when he smiles.

And then he pulls my bottom lip between his, and it’s still so slow and tentative, and my hands leave his face and wrap around his neck, and his hands leave my face and go to my waist, and he’s pulling me as close to him as possible, squeezing me so hard that it feels like he’s afraid I’m going to escape.

After several minutes, he pulls away and looks at me, our faces no more than an inch apart. Then he kisses my cheek and then my ear, and then he whispers to me. “I want to make love to you, Donna. Not because we’re married and not because we’re not. I want to make love to you because I love you and I need you. Please let me show you that.” 

And all I can do is turn my head and kiss him, kiss him deeper and harder than I’ve ever kissed anyone, because there’s nothing else to say. He loves me and although I’ve always known that to a point, he’s never said it before. And right here, right now, I don’t care what tomorrow brings or how hard I’m going to cry when he gets up and leaves. I just want to feel him on top of me and inside of me. I need to be that close to him now. He said he loves me, and as much as I know it, I need him to show me.


	7. Atlantic City

Josh and I have made love a total of three times, and it occurs to me as we’re lying here on our sides, facing each other, legs intertwined, fingers laced, staring at each other like newly weds, isn’t that ironic, that each of the three times has been completely different.

The first time was straight out passion. It was six years of desire that had built to the point on no return. It was intense, concentrated, a culmination of a million feelings that refused to hide any longer. We literally kissed for like an hour before actually making love; he focused solely on my lips, his hands were tentative, and until gasps and moans became names, neither of us said a word.

The second time was playful and fun. It was supposed to be quick, and to be fair, it was the quickest of our three times. We joked, we laughed, he tickled me. And yes, there was a lot of kissing, but it was different kissing than the first time. He kissed me everywhere, tasted every inch of my body, paid special attention to my breasts, my nipples, my thighs; his touch was feather light; we explored more.

And this last time, it was almost reverent. He whispered over and over that he loved me. He kissed tears off my cheeks. I kissed them off his. His kisses focused on my neck, my collarbone, my ear, my jaw, he held my face in his hands. His touch was deliberate, his actions slow. He held me over him, loved the way my hair fell around our faces, loved the way our eyes locked together and wouldn’t let go.

I have a feeling Josh never makes love the same way twice.

So we’re lying here, just kind of looking at each other and smiling like idiots when Josh boldly proclaims, “That’s not the last time we’re doing that.”

“Really,” I say chuckling. “What do you suggest?”

“An elaborate scheme,” he says, his hands wondering over my side to my hip, drawing circles.

“We’d be very careful, of course.”

“We’re two very intelligent people, surely we can think of something,” he says, dropping his head to place hot open mouth kisses on my shoulder. Man, I like it when he does that. 

“We’d have to limit ourselves.” 

“Like to once a day?” he asks, and although he’s still kissing my shoulder, I can hear the smirk on his face.

“More like once a year.”

His head jerks up to my face in lightning speed. “Noooo,” he says, shaking his head. “Unacceptable. Three times a week.”

“That’s not sneaky. Birthdays and Christmas.”

“Have you lost your mind? Once a week.”

“Once every other month.”

“Was this not as good for you as it was for me? Twice a month.”

“It was incredible. Once a month.”

“Plus birthdays and all holidays.”

“All holidays? No way. I know you Lyman; you’ll study every calendar for every country in the world. You’ll find a holiday every day, you’ll make them up.”

He starts to protest but then nods. “True.”

“Once a month plus Christmas and birthdays.”

“Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Easter, Labor Day, and Halloween too.”

“Pick two of those.”

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Fine. I’ll take Labor Day, Fourth of July, and Memorial Day. Now you pick three.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it. Plus…”

“There’s more?”

He nods and grins. “I’m going to need occasional make-out sessions.”

“Make-out sessions?” This is the word he chooses to use?

“Do you have a better term?”

I shrug. “No, not really. What do you mean by occasional?”

“Once a week.”

“What, I just come into your office every Wednesday, shut the door behind me and make out with you for ten minutes?”

“No, although I like that idea. Keep thinking of things like that.” I try not to laugh, but he continues on. “I’m thinking every Sunday for an hour. One week at your place, the next at mine. We usually work from home on Sunday’s anyway, we’ll just slip it in.”

“We need a full hour for make-out time?”

“I like the kissing, Donna.”

I nod. “Ok, but all clothes remain on.”

“On, but unbuttoned.”

“Shirt only. Pants remain completely done up, as well as bras.”

“I can live with that.”

“And other times, it’s business as usual. No staring, no flirting, no insinuating, no touching, no comments, no freaking out, no quickies in Leo’s closet.”

“Agreed.”

“Ok, but don’t think I’m going to cave. You get once a month, birthdays and four major holidays, plus one hour a week of lip action. Nothing more.”

“No caving; got it.”

“Should I draw up a contract? We could sign it.”

“I think this is something better left unwritten.” And when he says that, suddenly reality comes crashing down on us. 

“Josh…” I whisper.

He leans in and kisses my forehead. “I know.”

“Can we have the weekend?” I’m not quite ready to give this up. Just two more days, that’s all I ask.

“Yeah, we can have the weekend,“ he whispers, pulling me closer to him and holding me tight.

 

We actually have a good time at dinner with CJ and Toby. CJ goes on and on about her amazing spa day, trying to make Josh feel guilty for dragging me out of it. He plays the ‘I don’t care’ card, but I can tell he does. He glances at me as she talks about it as if to apologize. Doesn’t he know that a day at the spa, as wonderful as it is, can’t compare to a day of mind-blowing sex with the man you love? I’ll have to tell him that later, when we’re alone.

Toby came in fourth in his tournament and won a thousand dollars. I think he’s pretty excited, although you just can never tell with him. He is having fun making fun of Josh for losing in four hands, though, and I know he’s enjoying that. Tonight, they’re hitting the blackjack tables, and CJ and I are going out dancing again. 

“Dancing again?” Josh asks as we finish coffee after dinner. Poor guy. He looks so tired. There was very little sleep last night followed by quite a bit of strenuous activity today.

“That’s right my friend. Donna and I have groove, and we’re going to flaunt it.”

Josh’s eyes about bug out of his head but Toby’s the one who speaks. “You could barely open your eyes this morning. Are you sure you want another night of that?”

“Oh, I intend to stay relatively sober tonight. I was too drunk to notice all the men hitting on me last night.”

“You’re sure men were hitting on you?” Josh asks her.

“Have you seen me?” is her only reply. He just nods and shuts up. Of course men were hitting on her.

“We should go and watch out for them,” Josh says to Toby.

“No, no, no, no,” says CJ. “You two only get in our way, right Donna?”

Umm…ok. “Right.” 

“What do you mean?” Josh squeaks. “I can keep up, I can dance with the best of them.”

“Well, that’s debatable,” she says and I laugh. “But men don’t hit on two women who go to a bar with two men.”

“Exactly,” Josh says triumphantly.

“And see, that’s going to be a hindrance. We’d like to be hit on, many times by many men, wouldn’t we Donna?”

Uh oh. “Yes, absolutely.” Don’t look at him. Don’t look at him. Ok, I looked at him. He looks, well… not happy. But he’s going to have to get used to conversations like this.

“I don’t want to go anyway,” says Toby, like he could care less if we got picked up by strangers and moved to West Virginia to raise sheep on a farm. “I’m playing blackjack tonight and sleeping in tomorrow.”

“But,” Josh looks at Toby and then me. I give him that cool it look of mine. “Fine, I’ll play blackjack too. But I won’t enjoy it,” he says, emphatically.

“Yeah, I’ll be worried about that all night,” CJ says, standing up and motioning for me to follow.

“We haven’t paid,” I say quietly, standing up.

“The boys are paying tonight. Thanks guys.” And off we go to change clothes.

I’m in my room all of thirty seconds when my cell rings. Oh, I wonder who that could be. “Hello Josh.”

“Is she there with you?”

“No.”

“Dancing?” It’s the squeak again. Doesn’t he have any control over that?

“It’s fine, Josh.”

“Donna, last time you went dancing you got illegally married and woke up in some gomer’s bed!” The more he talks, the faster he gets.

“Yes, but the gomer was you.”

“Still!” He’s freaking out a bit here. I’m kind of enjoying it.

“If I promise not to get illegally married and go to bed with a gomer tonight, will you feel better?”

“No! Men are still…” He stops talking.

“What?”

“Going to…” He stops again. 

“Yes?”

“You know… touch you and dance with you and feed you one liners and buy you drinks and try to get you into bed.” Faster, faster, and faster.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m already engaged then, or someone might be worried about that.”

“Donna!!!”

“Josh!!!” I’m mocking him, I admit.

“You like to torture me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Donna…” Now he’s whining.

“Josh…” I mimic.

“I thought…” He stops talking. 

“What?”

“We could…” He stops again, but I know what he’s talking about this time. 

“Yes?”

“You know… wake up together tomorrow.” See, why does he have to be so sweet. He could have said ‘have wild sex all night.’ But no, he goes with the waking up together line. Smooth. Very smooth.

“I see,” and I can’t help smiling. “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem. I already told CJ I’m too tired to stay out late. I should be back by one or two.”

“That’s not very late?” Now he’s squeaking again. I love it!

“It’s not late when there’s a big vote in the house coming up,” I remind him.

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because men aren’t hitting on you then!”

“Josh, you can’t be a total Neanderthal. It’s only cute up to a point.” It’s still cute at this point, but he doesn’t need to push his luck.

It gets quiet for a minute. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“You’re really not.”

“No.”

“I’ll call you when I get back. You might be on a blackjack streak anyway. If you’re still up, then we can…”

“I’ll be up.”

“Ok,” I say laughing. “Have fun with Toby.” 

“Yeah, have a horrible time with CJ,” he mumbles.

In fact, I do have a terrible time with CJ. It’s not her fault, I’m simply beat. What with the married, must get annulled, not married, engaged, emotional break down, sex three times, plan to continue sex, realizing said plan wasn’t going to work, and lying in bed with Josh, it’s been an emotionally exhausting day. We call it quits at 12:30, and by 12:45, I’m back in my room. Fifteen minutes later, Josh is at my door, leaning against the frame wearing jeans and a sweater holding a bottle of Champaign and two glasses. I love Atlantic City!


	8. Atlantic City

“What time are we meeting CJ and Toby?” he asks me, as we lay tangled up together in bed. I could get used to this pretty easily.

“Eleven, for brunch.” Of course, I’m hungry now.

“That’s four hours away.”

“Yes it is,” I say, kissing his chest, lightly raking my fingernails over his stomach. He has a ticklish spot I’m a pretty big fan of on the right side of his stomach, right where stomach turns to side. I go over that place repeatedly, making him jerk just a little. “What if one of them calls your room?”

“I put a do not disturb on the phone in my room and brought my cell,” he says, smugly. 

I prop myself up on my hands over him and kiss the corner of his mouth. “You’re very smart.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“And very humble,” I say, kissing his jaw.

“Yes, that too.”

“And what if CJ stops by here, humble man?”

“All my clothes are in a pile, I grab them and hide in the bathtub,” he says, putting his arms around me and pulling me flush to his body. We both groan a little.

“Not in the bathroom?”

“No, she could walk in there.”

“But probably won’t get in the tub.”

“I can’t imagine why she would.”

“Well, that should be fun to watch, should it happen. You naked in the shower, CJ opening the curtain and screaming.”

“She might scream, but secretly she’d like it.”

“You think so, huh?”

“Yep.”

I roll off him and pick up the covers, looking down at his body. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” At that, he rolls over on top of me and there’s no talking for a while.

********** 

After brunch, CJ and I go shopping on the boardwalk while Toby goes back to bed after staying up till 9am playing blackjack. This leaves Josh to fend for himself, which scares me as much as it does you. What scares me even more is that he doesn’t even whine to come with us. He says he’s going to spend the day redeeming himself at the poker table. I have a feeling he’s going to spend the day losing money at the poker table, but that’s just my opinion.

I smile and waive as CJ and I leave, ignoring the pitiful look on his face that says he’d rather be in bed with me than on his own for the day, but he’ll be fine. We have the whole night to ourselves! CJ and Toby are going to see the Beach Boys. They bought tickets a few weeks ago, but by the time Leo convinced Josh that it was alright to take four days off in a row, the concert was sold out. We’ve discussed many options for the evening, but I think we’ve decided on room service and sex. 

Anyway, CJ and I walk up and down the boardwalk going into all the little shops. I love stuff like this. Shell necklaces, sharks teeth, t-shirts that say ‘I lost my ass in Atlantic City’, fake marriage certificates, snow globes of the city, decks of cards...

Did I just say fake marriage certificates? I stop dead in my tracks and slowly turn around. CJ is a few rows away from me trying on silly hats, so I head back to the fake marriage certificates. This is it. I can’t believe it. This is our marriage certificate. Signed by Arthur Van Delay. All you do is fill out the names, there are even directions that show you how to put it through your printer. I can’t believe whoever married us got our marriage certificate at The Seaside Gift Shop in the same row as the bumper stickers. How pathetic is that?

“What are you looking at?” CJ asks, coming up behind me. Aaaahhhhh!

“Uh, nothing. Did you see the shot glasses? I was gonna buy one for Carol. She loves shot glasses.”

“She does?”

“Oh yeah, she’s big into them.” That’s not true. I can’t even lie well. What happens when we get back and I give Carol a tacky shot glass and she makes a comment to CJ about what a crappy gift it is? What do I do then?

“Well. What do you know… they’re over there,” she says pointing towards the other end of the store.

“Great, let’s go pick one out,” I say, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her along with me.

Twenty minutes and one shot glass later, we go to the Atlantic City Outlets on the boardwalk. It’s awesome! They have Liz Claiborne, Guess, Nautica, Casual Corner, Banana Republic, Coach, Kenneth Cole, and Mikasa, as well as other stores I couldn’t care less about. Anyway, we spend the rest of the afternoon shopping, spending money we don’t have and justifying it by saying it’s cheaper because it’s outlet. I love outlet shopping!

At four, CJ and I head back to the hotel so she can get ready for her concert. She’s been talking about Brian Wilson all afternoon. Whatever…

After leaving CJ, I go back to my room, where I find that I have a message on my hotel voice mail telling me to dress nice and meet Josh in his room at 6:00 for a night of romance Lyman style. Romance Lyman style? Why does that worry me? 

Luckily, I bought a new dress this afternoon. It’s a white spaghetti strap dress with mauve roses on it starting on my right leg mid-thigh and trailing down in a curvy angle to my left ankle. It has a swoop down back and ends right at the top of my feet. White isn’t always appropriate to wear, but it was pretty cheap and elegant looking, and I always need dresses for state dinners and formal parties at the White House. And since I’m a girl on a budget, I buy them when I get the chance. I can’t afford a $500 dress every few months. And this was only $90 bucks cause we’re six weeks past Labor Day. Have I mentioned that I love outlet shopping?

So anyway, I shower and put my hair up with little twirly things hanging down, and then hold the dress up and admire myself in the mirror. Whoa. I look a little brideish like that, and I don’t think we need that. I think I’ll just wear my hair down tonight. I redo my hair, with a few curls and some waves and throw on my new dress and… uh oh.

I don’t have any shoes. I mean, yeah I have shoes. Black heals and gym shoes; neither of those are going to be appropriate with this dress. I’m bummed. I look hot in this dress. What? I do. 

I look over at the clock. It’s 5:35, twenty-five minutes. Can I get to the outlet mall and back, and if I do, can I find white shoes in early October? I can do it. I’m a woman on a mission. Clothes cannot beat me.

I call the front desk and tell them I’m on my way down and need a cab waiting for me. Six minutes later, I’m at the mall. I don’t have time to play games, so I head directly into the Factory Brand Shoes and scan for dress shoes. Once I find those, I only see two pair of white shoes that I would be caught dead in. And only one of those is in my size. Well, that was a pretty easy decision to make.

I get back to my room at 6:02, slip into my dress and shoes, do a hair and make-up touch up and I’m in the elevator on my way to Josh’s room only 7 minutes late. I’m impressed with myself. Donna Moss, shopper extraordinaire.

I knock on the door for my first and last date with Josh Lyman, and I admit to having some butterflies in my stomach. But that’s nothing compared to the feeling in my stomach when he opens the door wearing a tuxedo. Josh Lyman and tuxedo can only add up to good things. My eyes widen and it gets a bit hard to breathe, because Josh is standing in his doorway wearing a tux and holding a single rose, which he hands to me before saying in a low voice, “You’re breathtaking.” 

I can’t help getting a huge smile on my face, so I don’t bother trying to hide it. “So, this is romance Lyman style?”

“This is just the beginning,” he says, pulling me inside his room. The lights are off in the bedroom, the only light coming from the bathroom. Somehow, it’s the perfect amount. His curtains are pulled back, giving us a wonderful view of the boardwalk and the ocean, and there’s music playing on his radio. Without so much as a word, he pulls me to the center of his room and we start dancing. 

Josh is a great dancer, regardless of CJ’s joke last night. The thing is, Josh isn’t such a great contemporary dancer. But to classical, with a woman in his arms, he’s very charming. We dance in silence for a few minutes, and I find myself deliriously happy that The Beach Boys sold out. 

We dance until 6:30, when there’s a knock at the door. When he answers, a waiter comes in with dinner, which he places on a table that must’ve been brought in earlier. There’s a vase on it with another single rose, and the food is covered with silver covers. When he leaves, Josh takes my hand and we sit down to eat.

When he pulls the cover off my side, I’m looking down into an awesome looking salad, some broccoli and a lobster tail that’s already been taken out of the shell. I look up at him and I can’t off wipe this ridiculous looking smile that’s been on my face since the second he opened the door. “This looks incredible.”

“So, do you like romance Lyman style?” he asks me with a grin of his own.

“I do indeed. You’ve been very busy today.”

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” he says with a wink.

We sit and talk about nothing and everything, and when we’re done with dinner, he pulls another try over, pulling the lid off it and revealing some sinfully amazing looking chocolate desert thingy. He picks up a spoon and puts a bite up to my face. How sexy is that? My smile widens and I close my eyes and open my mouth so he can feed me. 

“Wow,” he whispers, not giving me the bite.

“What?” I ask, eyes still closed.

“With your eyes closed and your mouth open like that, I’m finding it hard not to drop this spoon, pick you up and carry you to bed.”

I open my eyes and look directly at him. “I wouldn’t really have a problem with that.”

He gives me the bite and then does in fact put the spoon down and come over to my chair. But instead of taking me to bed, he whispers, “Dance with me again.” How do you say no to that, and more importantly, why would you want to?

We dance and kiss, and kiss some more. “You taste good,” he says to me.

“I think that’s the chocolate,” I whisper back.

When I say that, he starts laying open mouth kisses on my neck and collarbone. “Nope, it’s you,” he says a few minutes later when he pauses to comes back to my face. 

We dance and kiss for a while longer, and then he pulls back and looks at me. “If I found a way for us to be together now, would you want that?”

I can’t believe he even needs to ask me that. “More than anything.”

We start dancing again, and he leans in and kisses my ear, then whispers, “I found a way.” 

What? I pull him even closer to me, so that my lips are aligned to his ear and his lips to mine. I’m very quiet for a minute, and then I whisper, “Would it hurt your career?” That’s not an option. He lives for politics.

“No. A few scuffles maybe, nothing major.”

I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye and try desperately not to break down. “Promise?” 

“I promise. I just need you to trust me.”

“Does it include my resignation?”

“I don’t think so, but it’s a possibility.”

We keep dancing but I don’t say anything. I can’t. There are a million things going through my head and I’m not sure I can voice them. So instead, I bury my head in his neck and try desperately not to break down…again. I love my job, but it in no way compares being with Josh. I would’ve quit a month after I started if he’d asked me to be with him instead. But it’s never been that easy. Even if I had quit to date him, it would’ve looked bad. Maybe not so much now, since it’s been so long, but there always seems to be a reason to wait. The question is, am I willing to keep waiting for this?

This… this is all I’ve wanted for years. But standing here I’m finding it hard to believe that we can really be together. It’s like after all this time, I just can’t bear to believe in it and then find out we’re wrong. I can’t keep breaking my own heart. It’s killing me. But how can I do anything else. I’m not really alive without him. I’m just going through motions. 

Finally, I take a deep breath and lift my head again so I can whisper in his ear, “I trust you.”

When I say that, he spins us and dips me and I can’t help laughing, and he’s laughing and smiling too. “So romance Lyman, what’s the plan?” 

And without lifting me back up, he smiles his dimpled smile and says, “Marry me.”


	9. Atlantic City

Marry him? What in the hell is he talking about? We’ve already discussed this. “What?”

He picks me up from the dipped position I’m in and smiles at me like he’s ten and just got a new bicycle. “Marry me.”

I’m confused as hell, but I can’t quite keep the grin off my face, and the overwhelming need to kiss his dimples comes over me, so I do. “I thought we’d already determined that I’d marry you. We’ve even set a date if I remember correctly.” I turn my head and kiss the dimple on the other cheek.

“Ahh… yes. But the plan calls for bumping that up a bit,” he says, still smiling, holding me close as I kiss him.

“Bumping it up, huh? To when?” And before he answers, I go ahead and plant a small kiss on his lips, just because I can’t seem to get enough of those lips.

“An hour,” he says, and kisses me back.

After the kiss, I start chuckling. “We’re bumping it up an hour?”

“No, no, no. We’re getting married in an hour.” He looks at his watch and then back at me. “And a half.”

“What?” I half yell. Oops.

“Marry me in an hour and a half,” he says in a completely upbeat, no big deal voice with that ten year-old grin in place.

“That’s the plan?” I screech out. I’ve got to get a hold of myself. This is a joke, right?

“That’s the plan,” he says nodding and smiling and dimpling. Dimpling? Is that even a word?

“But…”

“You said you trusted me.”

“But…”

“Donna,” he says, holding his hand up to interrupt me. “You said you trusted me. Has that changed?”

I shake my head back and forth several times. “No, but…”

He nods hard once. “No buts. We’re trusting the plan, and this is the plan.”

“The plan…” We have a plan?

“The Being Together For The Rest Of Our Lives Without Ruining Our Careers plan.”

I’m starting to hyperventilate. “I… the… marr… I think I need to sit down.”

“Ok,” he says, laughing at me a little and leading me to the bed where I fall to my butt and sit looking up at him standing over me. I’m pretty sure one of us has lost our mind; I’m just not sure which one of us. I start taking deep breaths. “Better?” he asks.

“This plan…” I say, still a little out of breath.

“The Being Together For The Rest Of Our Lives Without Ruining Our Careers plan,” he reminds me.

“Right. This is the plan that you’ve come up with a day after attempting to annul our marriage that didn’t actually exist.”

“Yes. But we won’t be annulling this one.” How can he be so calm right now?

“W w w we won’t…”

“No,” he says shaking his head. “This one’s a keeper.”

“A keeper…” I can’t really form sentences right now, so I just repeat what he says.

“Trust Donna, trust.”

“But…”

He interrupts me with a joking voice. “We need to work on the trust issue, Donna. I’d imagine a lack of trust is a pretty big reason marriages don’t work.” 

I don’t think he’s kidding. I’ve got to get a grip and talk some sense into him. “Might another reason be that one of the people resents the other one for ruining his career?”

“Well,” he nods. “Possibly, but you’re not going to ruin my career, and I’m not going to ruin yours. That’s all part of the plan.”

Again with the plan. “The Being Together For The Rest Of Our Lives Without Ruining Our Careers plan?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“I see.” I stop talking and rub my face with my hand. “Well…not to sound untrusting…” I gesture towards him.

“Of course not.”

“How exactly does this plan of yours work?” I ask casually. Get him to see the error in his plan. That’s how to go about this.

“We get married in…” he looks at his watch. “An hour and twenty minutes.”

Ok, it’s official; he’s the one who’s lost his mind. “Go on…”

“And then we come back here and have lots and lots of wedding night sex.”

“That’s part of the plan?”

“A very important part of the plan.” Admittedly, I like this part of the plan. I will not, however, be sidetracked. I glance behind me at the bed I’m sitting on, and suddenly, I’m sidetracked. 

“Ok. And what comes after that?” I ask, still looking at the bed. He chuckles at me.

“We talk to CJ and Toby about it tomorrow and then the four of us talk to Leo about it, and then CJ announces it at her early press briefing on Monday.”

Well, this takes my attention away from the bed. “Which is where the ruining of the career comes in.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him. “You’re telling your future wife she’s wrong?”

He looks at me with raised eyebrows. “Yes, but only this one time.”

“And how exactly am I wrong?” I ask with my arms still crossed over my chest.

“ Well, I can’t be having an illicit affair with my wife. And she can’t be a scandalous blonde if she’s married.”

“A scandalous blonde?” I yell.

“That’s the only time I’m going to say that too,” he says, weakly smiling at me.

“That’s wise.”

“Thank you, but you see my point…”

I shake my head at him. “Not really, no.”

“We’ve known each other for six and a half years. There have never been reports of any inappropriate behavior between us. Then we get married, which makes any future behavior between us appropriate. Which, in turn, leaves us scandal free.”

“Or… makes everyone start looking into our past for inappropriate behavior,” I remind him.

He nods at me but rebuts my idea. “Perhaps, but looking into my past shows a one year relationship with…”

“Don’t say her name,” I interrupt.

“Uh… ok. But before her was a relationship with…”

“Don’t say her name either,” I interrupt again. I will not have their names come up at my proposal. Proposal? I’m not taking this seriously, am I? Am I? Oh no, I’m as crazy as him. 

“Right. There was also your relationships with… other men.”

“It’s ok to say their names.”

He shakes his head at me. “No it’s not. But regardless, I’m just saying that looking into our pasts only proves that we haven’t been together before now.”

Good point. But… “People who start rumors like this aren’t too concerned about the truth.”

“You have a valid point.”

“Gee, thanks,” I deadpan.

“But… we are going to be open and honest and not hide anything. Someone says something incorrect; we simply provide the evidence to the contrary. Someone says, for instance, that we’ve been dating for years, we bring up the people we aren’t saying by name. Someone says we’ve been sharing hotel rooms while away on business, we show receipts. We’re covered.”

“And what if people say I slept my way into the job? How are we going to prove that’s incorrect?”

“Well, for one thing, I was dating…you know.. when I hired you. And for another, who’s going to say that after six and a half years? And what politician would believe them if they did? Politicians know you; they’d never believe it. It’s not like we’re the picture of a torrid love affair. We’re both single, we’ve both openly dated other people, we work incredibly well together, so well, in fact, that no one has ever questioned your qualifications. The sleeping together the whole time theory simply doesn’t fly.”

“People will say you knocked me up and that’s why you’re finally marrying me.”

“Then you’ll take a pregnancy test and we’ll give the results to the press.”

Damn, he’s thought this through. “So, this is the plan.”

“This is the plan.”

“Why? Why now?”

He shrugs. “Because I just thought of it.”

“Then why were we going to have yesterday’s marriage annulled?” 

“I’m glad you asked.”

“You are?” I ask skeptically.

“Yes, because I’d like to explain.”

“Well, by all means,” I gesture to him. “Go ahead.”

He begins pacing a little in front of me. “Had that marriage been legal, annulling it would have been the wise thing to do. Our marriage needs to be a conscience decision, not a drunken idiotic idea. We need pictures to release to the press, with us smiling and staring at each other like love sick fools, wearing rings and holding flowers and dressed like a bride and groom that made a decision and planned a wedding. Getting drunk and then accidentally getting married while you were wearing the black leather pants you were wearing the other night, as much as I like those pants, wouldn’t have boded well for the Being Together For The Rest Of Our Lives Without Ruining Our Careers plan.”

I nod along as he speaks, but when he’s done, I’ve found the mistake in his logic. “I see. Of course, we haven’t planned a wedding. You’re aware of that, right?”

“Ahh… that’s where you’re wrong again.”

“I’m wrong again? This is how you talk to the woman you’re trying to convince to marry you?” I ask sternly.

“Misinformed?” he squeaks.

I give him an evil eye. “Better. How am I misinformed?”

“While you were out shopping and being girly with CJ today, I was planning our wedding.”

“You planned our wedding.” I ask doubtful.

“I did indeed,” he says, obviously very proud of himself.

“And how did you do that?”

“Well, I arranged for a chapel, a real one, not a drive-thru. I also arranged for real flowers in said chapel, a photographer at said chapel, a justice of the peace, who will be bringing a marriage liscense and real certificate, a tuxedo for me, a limousine, a romantic re-proposal, and…” he drops to one knee in front of me and pulls a ring from his pocket, taking my hand and slipping it on my finger. “Wedding rings that are, in my opinion, a huge step up from our last.” 

I look at him in shock, and then down at my finger and…wow! A huge step up might be an understatement. This ring is incredible! It’s platinum and has a gorgeous emerald cut diamond with smaller emerald and round cut diamonds going down the band, and it actually fits my finger correctly. Given a thousand choices, it’s the exact one I would’ve chosen. “It’s…” I start to say something, but I can’t quite find the words, so I just stare at it, trying desperately not to be swayed by the plan and the planning of the wedding and the ring and his gorgeous eyes staring at me or the dimples appearing in that Lymanesque way of his. 

“And…” he says, a bit smugly. “I’ve left you speechless. I’d say everything’s arranged.”

I bite my lip and stare at my hand in his. “But…” 

“Trust, Donna. Trust.”

“But why?” I whisper.

“Because it’s the plan,” he says quietly.

I look up at him and stare in his eyes. “But why?” I whisper again.

He nods at me and smiles. “I know what you’re asking. Do I want to get married to you because it’s the only way we can date?” 

I nod and bite my lip so as not to cry. I can’t help it; I’m a little scared here. “Is that why?” I ask quietly, looking back down at our hands.

He lifts my chin up with his other hand and smiles softly at me. “No. I want to get married to you because I’m madly, deeply, helplessly, hopelessly, desperately, insanely, and forever in love with you. The fact that it fits into a plan is just a plus.”

Well, there goes all logic and reason out the window, and suddenly, I can’t help smiling. I mean, how do you say no when a man says that to you? And more importantly, why would you want to? “And you really think this plan would work?” 

“I do or I wouldn’t suggest it.”

I nod. “Then I trust you.”

He pulls me up from the bed and kisses me long and hard on the mouth. I’m never gonna get sick of that. “And you’ll marry me? Tonight?” he asks once we part.

“Well,” I say with a big smile on my face. “That’s the plan.”


	10. Atlantic City

As soon as I agree to marry Josh, he kisses me. Actually, he takes my face in his hands, whispers, “You’re amazing,” to me, and then kisses me very gently. I’m so amazed at this Josh. He just says the most wonderful things, and this makes me wonder where in the hell he’s been. I mean really, this is not the Josh Lyman I’m used to, so it leads me to wonder, is this romantic Josh the Josh I’m going to get from now on when were alone? Because that would be awesome! Or, is this Josh Lyman only here to win the prize, the prize being me, of course. And once we’ve signed the wedding certificate, the real one, are we going to go back to the same old Josh from before? Not that I don’t love and adore that Josh, I do. But this Josh whispers and touches and compliments, and well... is incredible in bed.

Although I’m guessing the other Josh is incredible in bed too. And that answers an age-old question. No wonder Amy came back for more. 

Anyway, as I’m thinking through all this Josh vs. Josh stuff, I’m not really noticing that Josh is getting a little ahead of himself. “Uh… what’ya doin’?” I ask him when I notice that my dress is unzipped and pooled on the floor at my feet.

“Celebrating,” he says, his mouth far too concerned with the dip in my collarbone to answer in a complete sentence.

I, of course, can’t help smiling when he says this. “We haven’t actually gotten married yet, you know.”

“It’s a pre-marriage celebration,” he says as he continues nibbling on my shoulder and neck and his right hand comes up to my breast.

“I see,” I say laughing. Then I pull his face up to mine and kiss him once before pushing him away from me and pulling on my dress. “We don’t really have time for a pre-marriage celebration,” I say matter-of-factly.

“But…” His mouth opens wide and he stares at me like I’ve stolen something from him.

“Josh, we’re getting married in an hour. I have things to do.”

“But….”

“I have to redo my hair and touch up my make-up and pack my things and bring them in here, and I should call my parents and you should call your mother and…”

“Donna!” he interrupts. 

“Yes?” I say, stopping my little rant and looking at him.

“I was… and you….and then you were almost naked…and then…and now…” he’s gesturing around and pointing to my body and the bed and he looks very flustered and very cute.

I smile at him. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have time.”

“I can be quick!” he says with pleading eyes.

“All evidence to the contrary.”

“But…” I’m trying very hard not to laugh at him, but he’s absolutely adorable.

“I tell you what,” I say seductively and walking up very close to him. “I’ll let you zip my dress back up.” I turn around, giving him a view of my entire back.

“But…” and he starts kissing my neck and running his hands up and down my back. “I don’t want it zipped up,” he says in somewhat of a whiny voice.

“I know, but I’m about to walk out that door and go back up to my room. Do you want me walking around the hotel like this?” As soon as I say that, I hear the zipper. I knew that would do it. Josh is not such a fan of other men seeing my body.

Five minutes later, we’re standing in my room and I’m putting my hair up like I had it earlier. I looked very bride-like earlier, which was bad. But now it’s good. Every time I pick a section of my hair up, Josh comes up behind me and kisses my neck at that spot. “Josh…” I say, again.

“I’m trying to help,” he says. It’s kind of hard to tell what he’s saying, what with the fact that his lips don’t actually leave my skin when he talks.

“Yet, you’re not being very helpful.”

“Donna,” he whines and stands upright so he can look at my face through the mirror. “Ten minutes ago you let me take your dress off you. I’m a man. Naked bodies affect me. You took yours away and that’s not fair.”

“I know, and when we get back here, I promise to be naked for the rest of the night, but I need to get ready right now. I’m getting married in forty-five minutes.”

He kisses my neck one more time and steps back. “You’re no fun. All night?”

“And well into tomorrow morning. Now, you could put my things into my garment bag and take them up to your room. That would be helpful.”

“Fine,” he huffs and starts wondering around the room.

A half hour later, we’re sitting in a limo on our way to whatever chapel Josh booked. I’m a bit scared that it’s going to be decorated in an Elvis theme or something equally as tacky, but Josh has assured me that’s not the case.

We’ve been in the limo for a few minutes, when out of the blue it hits me. “We’re going to have to live together.”

“Have to?” he squeaks, snapping his head in my direction.

Oops. “I worded that badly,” I say, giving him my sorry face.

“You think?” he says a little loudly.

I put my hand on his knee and my head on his shoulder. “What I meant was… we’re going to need to talk about our living arrangements.”

“Well, I’m not living in the ghetto.”

I sit up and look at him. “I don’t live in the ghetto, Josh.”

“No, because as of 8:30 tonight, you live in Georgetown with your husband.”

I ponder this for a few seconds. “We can get a new comforter for your bed?”

“Our bed? Yes.”

“And what about your bathroom?”

He smiles and shakes his head at me. “No flowers and no pink. That’s all I ask.”

I smile back and nod at him. “Ok, your place will be fine.”

“Our place,” he corrects me as he kisses me softly on the lips. A new husband and a new brownstone. This is getting fun.

Twenty minutes later, I’m walking down the isle of the small but nicely decorated chapel. There’s an elderly woman sitting in the back row acting as our witness, but other than that, it’s just the Justice of the Peace and us. I never would have thought about it, but I like that it’s just us. I like that this is a very private moment.

I’m about five feet from Josh when I start to panic. We haven’t discussed all the stuff you discuss when you’re dating, and suddenly I’m worried about a few things. Josh notices the look on my face immediately and pulls me close to him when I get to the front.

“What’s wrong?” he whispers.

I smile at the Justice of the Peace and then turn to Josh. “What about kids?” I ask quietly.

“What about them?” he asks me, obviously confused.

“Do you want them?”

He looks around our surroundings and then back at me. “Do we have to do this now?”

“Yes!” I shout. I’m sorry, but I already told you I’m panicking.

His eyes open wide and he looks back at the elderly man waiting to marry us. “We just need a minute,” he says to him. The man nods and Josh looks back at me. “Yes, I’d like to have children. But not until we’re out of the White House; I don’t want to be a part time dad.”

“That’s fine. How many?”

“How many?”

“Kids. How many kids?” Pay attention!

He shrugs a little. “Well, not a ton. I don’t know. Two, maybe three?”

I nod and smile, releasing a deep breath. “Good answer.”

“Anything else?” he asks me, laughing a little at me. I’m losing it and he can tell. And… he’s having fun with it. The love of my life, laughing at my nervous breakdown. 

“I don’t want to be a stay at home mom.” I’ve thought about this a lot, and I really admire women who choose to do that, but it’s not me. Maybe for a year, but after that, I’ve got to have some sort of life outside diapers and carpools.

“Ok.”

“I want to be a good mom, but I’d lose it if I stayed home and watched Barney everyday.”

“That’s fine. Are you ok? You’re not about to bolt, are you?”

“No I’m not about to bolt, but we haven’t discussed these things, and they’re important things. This isn’t a date, it’s a lifetime.” He smiles at me when I say that. This is a serious matter and he’s smiling????? “What are you smiling at?”

“The thought of a lifetime with you,” he says, smiling even bigger, which in turn makes me smile. See what I mean when I say “this Josh?” 

“I don’t want our kids in private education. Public schools. They offer more classes and multiculturalism that you don’t get in private education.”

“Ok, but that means that we find good public schools. Even if we have to move to a better district.”

“I don’t have a problem with that.”

“What about college? My dad and I both went to Harvard. It’s kind of a family tradition.”

“That’s fine, but only if they want to go there. I don’t want to pressure them.”

“No pressure, as long as they do their best.”

I nod. “And I’m a Christian. I know you’re not and that’s fine, but I am and I’m not going to change what I believe.”

He leans in and kisses my forehead. “I’d never ask you to.”

“And after the administration ends I might want to go back to school.”

“Not a problem. When my mom gets older, I think we should move her closer to us. She doesn’t have anyone else.”

“I’d love her nearby. Are you gonna change your mind and want to run for office some day?”

When I ask this, his eyes get big again. “You don’t want me to?”

“I want you to be honest. If you want to run, I want you to come to me and talk about it. Don’t pretend like it’s no big deal because you think I’ll be upset.”

“Ok. I don’t want to live in Wisconsin.”

“Wisconsin?” Where did that come from?

“I know your family’s there, and we can visit whenever you want, but I don’t want to live there. I want to stay in or near DC.”

“That’s fine. I want to take your last name. I know it’s not the feminist thing to do, but I want to have the same name as you and our children.”

“I’d love that.”

“We should’ve signed a pre-nup.”

“Why?” he asks in a very serious tone. 

“I know about the trust, Josh.” Josh has a trust fund from his grandparents on his father’s side. He’s never mentioned it, but I’ve seen it on his tax returns, and it’s quite a bit of money.

“So.”

“So, a pre-nup would protect you.” 

He smiles again and kisses me on the nose. “I don’t’ need protecting from you.” 

I look into his eyes and I can tell that it doesn’t worry him. I nod slowly. “Ok.”

“Anything else?”

I shake my head and smile at him. “No, I think that’s it. Thank you for humoring me.”

He gives me a glance of his dimples. “I like humoring you.”

“Why?”

“Because you get this funny look on your face and your eyebrows crinkle together and you look cute.”

“I love you, you know that?”

“Yep. And it’s a good thing, ‘cause I love you too.” He turns back to the Justice of the Peace. “We’re ready now.” 

Ten minutes later, I’m Donnatella Lyman.


	11. Atlantic City

The limo driver offers to drive us down the coast for a while before taking us back to the hotel, but after five minutes, Josh gets antsy about the promise I made to him earlier about remaining naked for the rest of the night and tells the driver we’ve seen enough of the ocean. Apparently romance Lyman has been replaced with must have sex now Lyman. Good thing we didn’t have a typical wedding followed by a reception. I don’t think he would’ve made it. I can picture it now, him dragging us off the coatroom after the father-daughter dance. Anyway, when we get to the hotel, he hops out of the limo and offers me his hand to help me out. Once I’m out, he picks me up and carries me into the hotel. 

“Josh, people are staring,” I whisper as we walk through the front doors.

“Well, I do look rather stunning tonight,” he says, flashing me his dimples. 

I can’t help laughing when he says this. “That must be it.”

He proceeds to carry me through the hotel. And by through the hotel, I mean through the hotel; past the front desk, through the casino, and down the hall towards the elevators. People passing congratulate us, applause breaks out near the craps tables, and a guy checking in asks what room we’re in so he could send up champagne. Josh thanks him but says we’re going to be too busy for champagne, at which point, another man checking in wearing a cowboy hat, a huge belt buckle and pointy boots yells, “You go, Cowboy.” 

Josh responds with, “Oh, I intend to.” You know, sometimes it’s not all that shocking that it took him to the age of 42 to get married. 

We wait for the elevator with several other people, and all the staring is getting a bit embarrassing. “Put me down,” I whisper.

He shakes his head and smiles at a man and woman next to us. “Nope. Can’t do that. I have to carry you over the threshold.”

“Our threshold’s in Georgetown,” I remind him.

“I’m planning on carrying you over that one too,” he says, kissing me on the cheek.

“Are you going to carry me the whole way up to the ninth floor? Cause I’m going to need you to have some amount of strength left when we get to the room,” I say pointedly. This makes the woman smile. 

When the elevator door opens, Josh carries me inside and the woman starts to come in behind us, but the man, her husband I assume, grabs her by the arm and keeps her outside. “You two gonna want that elevator alone?” he asks Josh as if I have any intentions of having sex in an elevator. 

Josh nods and sets me down. “We’d appreciate it, thanks,” he says, also as though I have any intentions of having sex in an elevator.

“Not a problem. Congratulations,” the guy says as the door closes.

And speaking of the closing door, it isn’t all the way closed before I’m pressed against the wall with Josh against me, his lips on my neck and shoulder, kind of nibbling on me. Soon, he’s moving the strap of my dress aside with his thumb as his fingers caress my shoulder. I won’t lie; it feels incredible, and suddenly I’m thinking it might be possible to persuade me to have sex in an elevator after all.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Josh doesn’t get too far in the elevator. When we reach our floor, I have one strap of my dress hanging loosely on my arm, but other than that, we’re both completely dressed. He simply refuses to be rushed when it comes to sex, but you know what? I’m not gonna complain about that. 

Anyway, the door opens and Josh picks me back up and walks us to the room, where he almost drops me getting the keycard out of his pocket. Then, in true Josh fashion, he can’t get the door open. Finally, fearing that I’m about to be dropped on my ass, I take it from him and let us in the room.

As soon he carries me in, he sets me down and kind of rubs at his back a little, but I’m too engrossed in what he’s done to the room to yell at him. The entire room is covered in rose petals. I mean the entire room. They’re on the floor, the bed, the table; it’s incredible. There’s also a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice, with two glasses and a bowl of strawberries next to it, as well as a dozen roses with a card that says, “Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Lyman.” The covers are pulled down on the bed and there’s another rose on one of the pillows. I’m guessing that one’s mine. Which leads me to the following thought: is this Josh’s way of calling his side of the bed?

“Whatever shall I do with you now, Mrs. Lyman?” he says in a very low, very sexy voice, coming up behind me and kissing me on the neck.

“What would you like to do with me, Mr. Lyman?” I ask in a similar voice.

“Many, many, many things,” he says as he unzips my dress and pushes the straps over my shoulders so my dress slides down my body to the floor. That’s the second time he’s done that tonight. Apparently, the undressing me part of sex he doesn’t mind doing quickly. 

Three hours later, I’m hungry. Give me a break, we ate dinner at 6:30, and it’s now 2am and there’s been quite a bit of physical activity. Luckily, I have the world’s most amazing husband, or you know, a husband who can’t resist my pout, so pizza’s on the way. While we’re waiting, I go into the bathroom to wash off my make-up and take out my contacts. See, these are things they don’t tell you about the wedding night. ‘Sorry honey, but before you take off all my clothes, ravish my body and take me to bed, I’m gonna need to wash my face so my pores don’t clog and I don’t wake up with the complexion of a fourteen year-old with mascara under my eyes making me look gothic. Also, I’m going to be fairly blind in a few minutes, so we might as well turn off the lights.’ You don’t see that conversation in the movies.

When I come out of the bathroom, Josh is sitting propped up against the headboard, not surprisingly watching CNN. I lean against the doorframe and watch him for a minute. His facial expressions as he watches commentary on next year’s budget proposal are priceless. “Ahh… there you are. I’ve been wondering where you went,” I say quietly a minute later.

He hits mute and looks up at me. “Where I went?” he asks, confused.

I walk over and sit down on the foot of the bed, in the opposite corner of him, face him and smile. “I’ve just wondered where this Josh has been.”

He raises his eyebrows. “This Josh?”

“Master politician Josh,” I say, gesturing towards him.

“I haven’t been this Josh?”

“Noooooo,” I drawl out, shaking my head. “You’ve been romance Josh.”

He looks at me for a second and then smiles wickedly and crawls towards me. “Which Josh do you like better?”

I shrug. “I’m a fan of both.” 

He holds the remote up towards the television and hits power, then tosses it over his shoulder. “Well, which Josh would you like here right now?” he asks seductively.

I look at him, crawling like a predator towards me, looking very hot and very naked, and I calmly say, “Whichever one I’m going to have when we get back home.”

When I say that, he stops just in front of me and looks at me. Then he sits up and takes my hand in his and just stares at it. Finally, he looks back up at me and says very quietly, “I know you’ve never seen this side of me, but it’s only because I couldn’t let you. This is how I’ve always wanted to be with you. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to stop myself from taking you in my arms and telling you I love you. How many times I tried to be like this for someone else and failed because she wasn’t you. Am I going to go back to political mode? You know I am. I breathe for my work; you know that better than most. Better than anyone, really. You know how I’ve sacrificed for it, how we’ve sacrificed for it. It’s what I do, and I love it. But it’s not who I am anymore. From now on, I’m a husband and that comes first. And not because it has to, but because I want it to. Because I’ve put you second long enough, and in doing so, I put myself second. So, in answer to your question, yes, master politician Josh, and I like that term by the way, is going to be around. And he’s gonna be an ass and yell and screw up and be political when he’s not supposed to be. But romance Josh isn’t going anywhere. He’s staying with his wife, if that’s ok with you.”

I tilt my head to the side and smile at him. “That sounds absolutely perfect,” I whisper, leaning in and kissing him. “Except for the yelling part.”

He smirks and kisses me again. “I’ll work on it.”

“No you won’t.” I say, chuckling.

He leans back, pulling me on top of him. “Probably not, no.”

When the pizza comes, I hop off of Josh, grab his tux shirt off the floor and toss it on, and then head for the door, while buttoning it. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asks in a squeak voice as he pulls on his boxers.

“I was gonna get the pizza,” I say, hooking my thumb towards the door.

“Like that?” Now he’s squeaking even louder.

I shrug. “Well, yeah.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”

I raise my eyebrows at him. “You don’t?”

“No. First of all, you made a promise to me earlier to remain naked all night and well into the morning and you’re reneging on that promise. Second, that’s quite possibly the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life and quite frankly, I don’t want the room service guy to try to steal you away from me on our wedding night.”

I smile. My husband is barbaric. I love it. Is that wrong? “He might envy you,” I suggest innocently, while at the same time unbuttoning the shirt and letting it hang off one of my shoulders.

He’s there immediately to lay hot open-mouthed kisses on that shoulder. “He might start plotting a way to take me out, so he can have you for yourself.” And when he says that, I pull his face up to mine and kiss him long and deep while rubbing my leg up and down his. I’m sure we got out of bed for a reason, but I can’t fathom what that was right now.

A minute later, someone yells, “Room service!” Right, pizza.

********** 

We made a deal last night that we would call our parents this morning before talking to CJ and Toby. I suggested that we call last night, but we didn’t have time before the wedding, and afterwards Josh had other things on his mind. Who am I kidding; we both had other things on our minds.

Anyway, after our shower this morning, which wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, we call our parents.

We start with his mom… no. First, let’s go back to the shower. Let me just say up front that this was Josh’s fault. Also, Josh has a rather large walk in shower with a door, which I think we’ll find more conducive to future joint showering. This hotel has a bathtub/shower. You know what I’m talking about, a typical bathtub/shower. Well anyway, I was in there showering this morning when Josh opened the curtain and got in behind me. “What’ya doin’?” I asked while shampooing my hair.

“Just showering,” he said as he kissed the back of my neck and started running his hands slowly up and down my stomach and over my breasts.

“I see. You know it’s my turn in here right now,” I said. But to be honest, I wasn’t pushing him away. In fact, I already had one hand back and in his hair and was tilting my head so he could get to my neck easier.

“You were taking to long,” he said, still kissing my neck and collarbone.

I giggled a little bit and pointed out that it had only been about five minutes.

“Yeah, that’s too long to go without touching you,” he said as he turned me around and started kissing me. A few minutes later, he started kissing lower; my breasts, my stomach, my bellybutton, my hip… you see where he was headed. As he got lower, he got down on his knees. Then, just as he was about to be where I needed him to be, he looked up and announced, “This hurts my knees.”

My eyes were closed and my head leaned back on the tile wall, and I was making cute little noises that make Josh laugh when he said this, so my eyes snapped open and my head snapped up. “Excuse me?”

He got up. HE GOT UP!!!! “That hurt my knees.”

My eyes got huge and I stared at him. “You’re a tease!” I half-yelled at him.

“I’m not a tease,” he yelled back. “I don’t see you trying it.”

I looked at him, wondering if this was some sort of trick he was playing to get what he wanted. Then, ever so slowly, I started kissing his chest, working my way down. Well, I was only on my knees about five seconds when I hopped back up. “Yep, that hurts.”

“See, I told you.”

“But that’s harder than most showers.”

“What?”

“I’m just saying, I’ve been on my knees in…”

He interrupted me. “I don’t want to hear that!” he squeaked out.

“What? I’m just…”

“No,” he said loudly, shaking his head back and forth.

I laughed at him. “You’re right. I’ve never tried that before, so how would I know shower floors could be so hard on the knees.”

“That’s better,” he said, leaning in and kissing me again. We kissed for a few more minutes, until I felt myself being pushed up against the wall and his hand pulling one of my legs around his hip. I raised the other leg around him as well, clutching him tightly and pulling him closer to my body. He had just entered me when his feet slipped beneath him and he almost fell. He dropped me immediately, and one of my feet slipped on the floor, making me tumble into him, and to attempt to steady himself, he grabbed my hair, pulling hard, making me scream.

The next thing I knew, we were sprawled out on the bathroom floor groaning in pain while at the same time laughing hysterically, tangled in the curtain that was pulled off the rod, with water spraying out all over us and the bathroom. “Well, that’s never happened to me before,” I said with my head buried in his shoulder.

“I thought we weren’t going to discuss past shower experiences,” he said as he pulled his feet that were dangling over the shower ledge the rest of the way over and onto the floor.

“Right, sorry.” I crawled off him and turned around and turned the water off, then started to stand. That’s when Josh pulled me back down on top of him and we just went ahead and had sex on the bathroom floor.

So, where was I? Oh yes, once we finally get cleaned and dressed, we call his mother. When she answers, Josh doesn’t even say hello before spilling the beans. “I’m married!”

We’re sitting in bed, him leaned up against the headboard, me between his legs leaned up against his chest, where I can hear the conversation, and I shake my head and laugh to myself at both the lack of subtlety from Josh and the sheer volume at which his mother screams, “What?”

He laughs too. “I got married last night!” he exclaims proudly.

“You got married?” his mother asks, obviously still in shock.

“Yes, but you can’t tell anyone yet. I still need to talk to CJ and Toby and Leo about it. So don’t go spreading it around your complex until it’s been leaked or announced to the press.”

“Fine,” she says in a huff. Then her excited voice comes back. “You’re married!”

“I’m married!” 

“And you’re happy?”

“I am,” he says nodding.

“Oh sweetheart! I’m so happy for you. Let me talk to Donna.”

“Ok, hold… wait a minute. How did you know Donna’s the one I married?” he asks cryptically.

Now it’s her turn to laugh. “Oh honey, I’m old, I’m not stupid.”

“Ok, here she is. I love you Mom,” he says chuckling and hands me the phone.

“Hello?”

“You married my son!” she yells.

“Yes.”

“You married my son! That makes you my daughter!”

“I guess it does,” I say, a little relieved and very touched that she would call me her daughter. 

“He says I can’t tell anyone,” she complains.

“By tomorrow afternoon, you should be able to tell anyone you want to, I’ll even e-mail you a few pictures when we get home tonight so you’ve got something to show your friends.”

“That’ll do. You’re happy?”

“Yes,” I say smiling.

“You’re going to have to yell at him and keep his ego in check from time to time,” she warns me.

“Don’t I know it.”

“Hey,” Josh yells, grabbing the phone from me. “You two aren’t supposed to gang up on me.”

“We’re not?” I ask innocently, kissing him on the cheek.

He talks to her for a few more minutes and then we hang up and call my parents, which is equally as easy. It goes something like this. “You’ve reached the Moss family. We’re unable to come to the phone, but if you leave a detailed message, we’ll get back to you. God bless.”

“Mom, Dad, hey it’s me. I wanted to tell you something, and since your instructions are to leave a detailed message, here goes. Josh and I are in love, which won’t surprise you in the least. Last night, we decided we’ve waited long enough to be together and got married. Don’t be mad that you weren’t there, it was just the two of us and we promise to come visit for a weekend next month. Anyway, you can’t tell anyone yet, there are some things with work we have to figure out, but I’ll e-mail you some pictures tonight and you can call me back and yell at me all you…” Beep.

“I can’t believe you told your parents over an answering machine,” Josh says, shaking his head back and forth.

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same.”

Once we’ve made the necessary phone calls, we pack. We’re leaving directly from breakfast, so at 9:57, we leave the room with all our things and head down to one of the hotel restaurants to meet CJ and Toby.

When we arrive, CJ’s looking chipper and Toby’s looking… Toby-like. Josh and I sit down and ask how the concert was and CJ goes into a ten minute spiel about Brian Wilson looking as good as ever while Toby rolls his eyes and says the music was good but made him feel old.

When she finishes her story, she looks at us and asks, “So, what did you guys do last night?”

Josh looks at me and then at her. “Funny you should mention that…”


	12. Atlantic City

“Funny I should mention that? See, you say that and I get nervous. Do I have a reason to be nervous Joshua?”

“No need to be nervous,” he says to her.

“But you did do something?” she asks him. Toby continues eating. I swear he couldn’t care less.

Josh looks at me and flashes his dimples. We have a plan. You remember, the Being Together For The Rest Of Our Lives Without Ruining Our Careers plan. I’m not sure where he gets the titles for these whacked out plans of his, but that’s another point all together. Back to the plan. Remember, step one of the plan was to get married in a planned out, pictures taken, proper attire sort of way to avoid any hint of a scandal. You know, like getting drunk out of your mind and accidentally getting married. Right, we were trying to avoid that. Step two of the plan included lots and lots of wedding night sex, which I assured Josh didn’t need to be part of the actual plan, but he insisted we leave it there in case I needed reminded. Yeah, right. Part three of the plan is CJ/Toby. We tell them and then they help us tell Leo. Another part of the plan, and this is non-negotiable, is that we are happy. This is not bad news; it’s great news. There will be no groveling, no apologizing, no talk of mistakes, and no talk of taking anything back. “Actually, we did something,” Josh says to her, stressing the ‘we.’ Then he hands her a manila envelope with some of our wedding photos. We paid extra to have them delivered to the hotel this morning.

She takes the envelope from Josh and pulls out several pictures. The one on top is my favorite. It’s of the two of us, obviously. I’m in front of him and his arms are wrapped around me from behind with his chin resting on my shoulder. Instead of looking into the camera, we’re looking down at the rings on our joined left hands and smiling like…well, newlyweds. 

She stares at this one for a minute, then calmly hands it to Toby and moves on to the next one. I don’t think she knew exactly what it was. Yes, we’re holding one another, but it’s not the typical bride/groom photo. But this one will do it. In this second one, we’re standing at the alter, half facing each other, and I’m holding my bouquet. We’re looking into the camera and smiling, and Josh has his dimples out in full force. There’s no denying that he was not only happy, but thought he was all that. This one should bring it all into focus for her.

She looks at it a minute, shaking her head and smiling, then passes it to Toby, who puts it on the table and looks at it while eating his hash browns. What the hell? Why isn’t she reaching across the table choking Josh? Why isn’t she screaming? Why isn’t she threatening him? 

She looks at the next picture, where we’re standing at the alter facing each other, kissing. My arms are around his neck with my bouquet in my hand, and his arms are around my waist. I’m a fan of this picture simply because we got a little carried away. It was supposed to be a chaste kiss for the camera, but it turned into a not so chaste kiss that ended only when the Justice of the Peace, his wife and the photographer all cleared their throats. CJ sees this one, she smiles and nods. What’s going on? I’m in the twilight zone. I’m afraid; this is like the calm before the storm.

After several seconds she passes it on to Toby and looks at the fourth one, which is of us, our Justice of the Peace, and our witness, who’s married to the Justice of the Peace and whose name is Blanche. Not only that, but she reminded me of Dorothy from the Golden Girls. I just got a kick out of the fact that she was like Dorothy and had Blanche’s… never mind. 

She quickly goes through the rest of the pictures, which are mostly of us walking down the short isle together, holding hands as we walked outside, getting in the limo, things like that, and then puts them down and looks up at us. No one has said a word since Josh handed her the envelope, but finally she speaks. “I’m impressed, Lyman,” she says with a nod.

Josh smiles and holds my hand on top of the table. Hmm… maybe there was no need to panic. CJ’s our friend first, right? Wrong!!! She’s about to pounce, she’s taking us by surprise. Josh is going to be limping out of here. “Why thank you, I think I did rather well myself,” he says, then leans over and kisses me on the cheek.

“Toby,” I say. “You’re pretty quiet over there.”

“What’s there to say? I knew something like this was going to happen. I wouldn’t have expected anything less.” He takes a bite of his bacon. “Nice dress. You didn’t bring it with you, did you?”

“No,” CJ says. “She bought this dress yesterday with the excuse of needing it for the next White House shindig.” Then she turns towards me. “That was rather sneaky of you,” she says with a smile.

I laugh but shake my head. “The fact that it was white was a complete coincidence.”

“Really?” she asks me, skeptically.

“Really! Josh planned the whole thing. And I have to admit, he did a wonderful job.” I pat his hand and he picks mine up and kisses it. CJ raises her eyebrows.

“You didn’t know when we were at that shop yesterday?” she asks me.

“The shop?”

“The one on the boardwalk with the certificates.”

“The wedding certificates?” I kind of choke out. “I uhh…I wondered if you saw those,” I say a little weakly.

“Of course I did. You didn’t know then?”

“About the wedding?” 

“Of course about the wedding.”

The first or the second? No need to bring that up, so I simply shake my head. “I didn’t know anything about this wedding until dinner last night. It was a surprise from my amazing husband,” I say, looping my arm through his.

She looks at the picture in front of her and then up at Josh. “This must’ve taken quite a bit of planning on your part,” she says a bit cryptically.

“Nothing’s too good for my bride,” he says, squeezing my hand.

She laughs a little. “A limo, a chapel, flowers…you even rented a tux. This must’ve cost a small fortune.”

“Well, how many times does a man marry the love of his life? Anyway, she thinks I look hot in a tux.” When he says that, Toby snorts.

“Who are the old people in the pictures?” he asks.

“Our Justice of the Peace and his wife. She was our witness,” I tell him.

“He looks Justice of the Peace like,” CJ says as I reach over and steal a piece of bacon from Toby’s plate.

He reaches across and slaps my hand away. “Hey, that’s my bacon. You want some, steal if from…” he trails off. 

“My husband?” I ask. 

“Yeah,” says CJ, laughing. “Your husband.” 

I smile and reach for bacon on Josh’s plate. He picks up his last piece, takes a bite and puts the rest in my mouth. Then he kisses me while I chew it up, which only makes me laugh. When we’re done kissing, I look up and CJ is staring at us with amusement in her eyes. Toby is looking at me like… well, I’m not sure what.

“CJ,” Toby says.

“Having fun playing your part there, Romeo?” CJ asks Josh, ignoring Toby.

“Actually, yes,” he replies and kisses me again.

“Ok, I think we’ve had enough of that. You’ve made your point.”

“Get used to it, my friend. We are newly weds and we intend on acting like it.” To accentuate his point, he links his fingers through mine.

“CJ,” Toby says. I look over at him and he’s looking at the pictures again.

She ignores him again and keeps talking. “So, when did you figure it out?” she asks Josh.

Josh smiles at me. “About ten minutes after we met.”

I lean against him a little. “It took me a bit longer. He was dating her who shall never be mentioned when we met. It was hard to see the wonderfulness through that. Plus, he’s…you know, him.”

“You’re very funny, you know that?” he asks me.

“Why yes I do, thank you,” I say and kiss him on the cheek.

“CJ,” Toby says again.

Again, CJ talks to Josh. “Well, you got me, I admit it. I knew it would happen, but I wasn’t expecting it today and certainly not done so well. I thought it would take you ages to plan something this good.”

“Well, we could’ve done big and fancy, but it was so much more… us like this. Simple and to the point. Just the two of us. It was, if I might be so bold, perfect.”

“CJ,” Toby says, this time louder.

She turns to him. “What?”

He turns and speaks very quietly to her. “The rings.”

“What?”

“The rings,” he says louder.

“What about them?”

He points to my hand. “Those aren’t the…”

“What the hell?” CJ interrupts, grabbing my hand and staring at my ring set.

I smile and Josh gets that look on his face that he gets when he kicks ass and knows it. Our rings are beautiful, he’s very proud of himself. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” I ask. 

She looks up at me and then back at my hand. “These aren’t… where did… what the…” I’m not real sure what’s going on right now, but I think it’s possible that CJ’s been in shock this entire conversation and is just now coming out of it. Which means, of course, that Josh could still be limping out of here.

Toby hands her back the pictures. “I can’t believe this,” he mumbles to her.

“These are real, they’re not hideous,” CJ says to me, still in shock I think.

I smile. “Well I’d hope not. I have to wear them the rest of my life.”

“They’re not gold plated,” she says to Josh.

“What kind of cheap bastard do you think I am?”

“But…”

“What?”

Finally she drops my hand and looks at Toby. “These aren’t the same rings.”

He shakes his head and runs his hands over his head. “No.”

“The same rings? What do you mean ‘the same rings’,” I ask. How do they know about the other rings?

“The rings we…you’re really married,” she says in a dazed voice to the two of us.

“Yes we’re really married,” Josh says. “What do you think we’ve been talking about for the last ten minutes?”

Her eyes get big and she screams, “Retribution, you idiot! I thought we were talking about retribution!”


	13. Atlantic City

“What the hell are you talking about? Retribution?” Josh asks.

“Tell me this is a joke Josh. Tell me you’re getting back at us.”

“For what?” he asks, obviously as confused as I am. What’s going on? How do they know about the other rings? Were they there? They must’ve been there. Why didn’t they mention it? 

CJ and Josh are staring at each other, both waiting for the other one to explain, so I turn to Toby. “How do you know about the other rings,” I ask him quietly.

He’s mesmerized by the stare down going on between Josh and CJ, but he snaps his head in my direction when he hears me. “It was just a joke. We didn’t think…”

“What?” I yell, and now CJ and Josh are both staring at us.

“It was…” he starts to speak. Then he looks calmly at me and says, “It’s CJ’s fault.”

“Shut-up Toby,” CJ says quietly. 

“I told you I was going to blame all of this on you,” Toby says to her.

“All of what?” Josh asks Toby.

CJ turns to Toby, yelling. “It was a joke. I didn’t expect them to wake-up and like the idea of it!” 

“Of course they’d like the idea of it. Have you ever met them?” he yells back.

She ignores him and turns to me. “Did he talk you into this? We played a trick on you so you thought you’d get married? What the hell were you thinking?”

Josh stands up and snaps at her. “Don’t talk to her like...what? You played a trick on us?”

“That was you?” I scream, standing up next to Josh.

CJ simply ignores all accusations and stands up and yells at Josh. “You married your assistant? Do you have any idea how that’s going to look?”

“I really don’t give a damn how it’s going to look,” he says to her and then turns back to Toby. “What the hell’s going on?” he asks in a steely tone.

Toby, the only one sitting down, looks at all of us. Then, ever so quietly says, “Ok, sit down and be quiet. We’re making a scene. We’ve got enough PR challenges today. We don’t need to add getting thrown out of a restaurant to it.”

“Toby,” Josh warns.

“Sit down Josh, and we’ll discuss it.” Reluctantly, Josh sits down. CJ and I follow and take our seats, and Josh leans forward in his chair, rubbing his face with his hands. Without thinking much about it, I reach my hand over and rub his back lightly.

“Donna!” CJ yells.

“We’re married CJ, get over it.” 

She throws her hands up in the air. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

The table gets eerily quiet and finally Toby says, “Ok, let’s start from the beginning. Cast your mind…”

********** 

“We shouldn’t do this.” 

“Of course we should. You know you want to do this,” she says to me in her drunken stupor.

I shrug because let’s face it, it’s unbelievably mean and would be so much fun. “Of course I want to, but we’re going to get in huge trouble when they find out.”

“Yes,” she says nodding quickly. “But won’t it be worth it?”

I think for a minute. “Yeah, but you should know right away, I’m blaming it on you.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything different.”

“Ok then, let’s do this,” I say, and shake her hand. It’s probably smart to mention that I’m not all that much more sober than she is.

“Right. Where do we start?”

“Well, they can’t sleep in that. Look through Josh’s stuff, see what he has that they can sleep in.”

“If it’s their honeymoon, wouldn’t they sleep naked?” she asks, nearly as drunk as the two passed out people lying on Josh’s bed.

“Do you really want them to wake up in the same bed naked? I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Yeah, they might constipate the thing” I raise my eyebrows and she holds a finger up to me. “Wait…not constipate.”

“Consummate, and we don’t need that.”

“Right.” She goes to Josh’s bag and rifles through it while I take off Josh’s shoes.

“Hi, Toby,” Josh slurs to me, waking up from the passed out position he’s in on the bed.

“Shh, Josh. It’s time for bed.”

“Kay.” I continue with his shoes and suddenly something hits me in the side of the head. 

“Put those on him,” CJ whisper yells to me. She’s not nearly as quiet as she thinks she is. I pick up a pair of pajama bottoms and tell Josh to take his pants off and put them on.

CJ meanwhile, is trying to get leather pants off of a not contributing much Donna. Between the two of their drunken asses, it’s like watching the Three Stooges. “Come on Donna, we gotta get you in some pajamas.”

“There’s more than one of you,” Donna says to her, opening her eyes lazily.

“Yeah, you too. Come on. Help me.” Finally Donna stands up and shimmies out of the pants. Then CJ helps her…

********** 

“You saw my wife naked?”

“No, I saw your wife in her underwear. But I was very busy focusing on trying to get you in some clothes. You kept falling over. Right on your face, you didn’t even put your arms out to catch yourself. It was pathetic.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t look at my wife’s underwear? I don’t believe you.”

“That’s because you’re an intelligent man. Anyway, she wasn’t your wife yet. Now shall I continue?”

“Yes, but we’re coming back to that part later.”

“Fine. Anyway…”

********** 

“Ok Donna, get in bed,” CJ says to her.

“Ok,” she says and gets in bed next to Josh. Immediately, he pulls her half on top of him and tells her she’s beautiful. This is the first time I re-think this plan of CJ’s.

I watch them for a minute, in case I need to break anything up, if you know what I mean. Once they’re still, CJ and I go downstairs and throw all of Donna’s things in her bag, then CJ calls the front desk. “Hello, I need to cancel my room.” I don’t hear the other side of the conversation, but when she hangs up, she turns to me. “They’ll be here in five minutes to take her things up to Josh’s room.”

“Why don’t we just take them up there?”

“How would we do that? We don’t have one of those gold pushy thingys.”

“A luggage cart? It’s a garment bag and a carry on bag. I think we could have handled it.”

“Right. Should I cancel?” 

“Yes. No, never mind. I’ll do it.” I call the front desk back and tell them that we’ll take her bags ourselves, and we take them upstairs. 

Upon entering Josh’s room, CJ shrieks, “Oh my God! Donna and Josh are in bed together.”

I look at her like she’s lost her mind. “Yes, we just put them there a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, right. They look pretty comfortable, don’t they?” I look over and they’ve changed positions. Now they’re on their sides facing each other, noses centimeters from each other, his hand around her back holding her too close to him for my comfort, her hand on his hip. This is the second time I re-think this plan of CJ’s.

“This might not be the smartest thing we’ve ever done,” I mumble.

You don’t think they’ll have sex, do you?” she asks me.

”No,” I say sarcastically. “They’re only madly in love and now in bed together. How could that possibly lead to sex?” 

********** 

“You did have sex, didn’t you?”

“You don’t want to go there right now, CJ. You’re in enough trouble as it is, don’t you think?”

“Oh lord, you did.”

“Yes, several times. Happy?”

“Can we just get on with the story, you two? And Josh; please stop arguing with CJ about our sex life. She and I will go to lunch next week when all this is cleared-up and she’s calmed down. I’ll give her all the details then.”

“Thank you, Donna.”

“Of course, I’m not leaving the sisterhood, CJ.”

“Focus people, focus.”

“Sorry Toby, please continue.”

“Right. Where was I…”

********** 

”Where did you see those rings?” I ask her when we’re in the elevator.

“In a thing,” she states simply as she fixes her make-up in the mirror in the elevator.

“In a thing?” Is she going to be this helpful all night?

“You know, you put money in them and… things come out,” she says gesturing.

“Things come out? You are so drunk.” Why did I let her talk me into this? Maybe I’m more drunk than I thought. I must be; in my right mind, I’d never succumb to one of her schemes.

“Candy bars.”

“Candy bars? Do you mean a vending machine?”

“Yes! At that place with the things.”

“A vending machine at that place with the things…” These are gonna be some high quality rings.

“Yes!” she says loudly.

“Of course. The place with what things?”

“The shirts and stuff.”

“The souvenir shop?”

“Yes! You’re very smart.” She looks at me like I’ve just solved world hunger.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re at the same dive souvenir shop that Josh threw up behind an hour ago. And as drunk as she is, she’s right. There’s a vending machine with confetti, gaudy rings, ugly bouquets and other wedding paraphernalia. 

“I like the gold ones,” she says, pointing through the glass to an extremely ugly set of rings.

Wedding rings for eight dollars. This is an all-time low. What I’ll do for a good laugh. I tell myself I need a life as I get a ten-dollar bill from my wallet and put it into the machine. I punch B1, and the rings fall to the bottom in one of those gumball machine round containers. Which sounds about right. These are about the same quality as a gumball machine ring.

“Confetti too!” she yells. It’s fifty cents, so I put a dollar of my change in the machine and hit A5.

“Do we need anything else?”

“How much money do we have left?”

“We? A dollar fifty.” 

She takes the money from me and looks through the glass again. “I don’t see anything,” she says and starts to leave.

That’s when I notice the fake marriage certificates hanging in plastic near the checkout counter. “How about this?” I ask her.

“What is it?”

“It’s a fake marriage certificate. There’s a cd-rom and you plug in the names and run it through a printer. I bet the hotel would let us use their printer if we used the “White House” card. 

“You have a card? I didn’t bring my card.”

“I just meant… never mind. Let’s get this. Give me the money.”

“Why do I have to pay for everything?” she asks me flabbergasted. 

“What? It’s my money. You took it from me.”

“I did?”

“Yes.” She pays for the certificates and puts the change in her pocket. What the hell?

********** 

“Donna does that too.”

“I do what?”

“You take my money to buy things and then you keep the change.”

“Hey, what’s yours is mine now, remember?”

“But you’ve been doing that for years.”

“Yes, but I always knew we’d get married some day and what’s yours would be mine. I was just practicing.”

“I see. I might just have to kiss you now.”

“Please don’t. I’m telling a story here.”

“Right. Sorry, Toby.”

“So, we get the stuff and….”

********** 

…head back to the hotel. It’s almost three o’clock in the morning at this point and I’ve got a very important poker tournament at noon which I need to be well rested for, but CJ refuses to be rushed. 

We tell the guy at the front desk that we need to use a computer and printer and that it’s official White House material and can’t be viewed. They give us an office to use and ten minutes later, we have a marriage certificate.

We go back to Josh and now Donna’s room, where we see that Donna is once again draped across Josh. His hand is in her hair and he’s snoring. For her part, she’s drooling on his chest.

“You take care of the rings,” I whisper to CJ.

“What should I do with them?”

“For crying out loud. Never mind. Give them to me.” I take the rings from her and ever so carefully put Josh’s on him. First I have to get him to let go of Donna’s hand, which he’s holding on his chest, and this is the third time I re-think this plan of CJ’s.

Once I have his ring on him, I have to get Donna’s ring on her. Unfortunately, her hand is under Josh’s pillow. “What’re we gonna do?” I ask CJ.

“Put it on her other hand?” she asks me while she picks things up from the mini-bar and puts them back down. Josh is going to be charged for all that stuff, which is just an extra perk! 

********** 

“That was you?”

“Get over it.”

********** 

“We can’t put it on her other hand. We’ve got to get her off Josh,” I tell her, looking around the room.

CJ grabs the remote off the television and begins lightly poking Donna in the side with it. “This is fun,” she says. I just nod and watch her.

Finally, Donna, starts stirring, but Josh, who immediately went back to holding her hand once I got the ring on him, starts squeezing her tighter. So I grab his shoe off the floor and start poking him. “You’re right,” I say to CJ. “This is fun.”

“Told you.” After a few minutes of poking, they finally separate. Donna rolls onto her other side, exposing her left hand. I take that as my opportunity to put the ring on her, which is when I learn that it’s too big for her finger.

“It’s too big,” I whisper to CJ.

“What’s too big?” she asks me confused.

“You are the worst trick playing partner in the world, you know that? The ring, CJ, the ring. It’s too big.”

“Oh, let me see it.” I take it back off Donna’s hand and hand it to CJ. She squeezes it together on the sides a little and hands it back. “Try this.” We got her a bendable ring? She’s gonna think Josh is a cheap bastard. I put it on and it fits better. Not perfect, but better and I decide we shouldn’t push our luck.

A few seconds later, Josh rolls onto his side and spoons Donna from behind. This is the fourth time I re-think this plan of CJ’s.

********** 

“After that, we put the certificate under your watch and left. We figured you’d wake up and panic, but figure it out in a few minutes.”

I look at Toby. “Not so much.”

“If you really thought you were married, why didn’t you come to me? I’m your first call. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“Well, instead. I threw my poker tournament and Donna left her little naked massage spa day so we could go downtown to the courthouse and have the damn thing annulled. That’s when we learned it was a fake.”

I step in. “The lady there told us that it’s fairly common for drunk people to be taken by cab drivers who perform fake ceremonies, and they’re too drunk to remember the details. That’s what we figured happened to us.”

“So, you thought you should get re-married?” CJ screeches.

“We liked it,” Josh says. “We liked being married. Let me rephrase that; we like being married.”

She puts her head down on the table. “So, I’m guessing you’re not going to annul this one.”

“Nope.”

“And you want my help telling Leo and the press.”

“I think it’s the least you can do. After all, waking up together started the whole thing. It’s like you were playing cupid.”

She looks at Toby and then at me. “You want to be married to this guy?”

I look at him and back at her. “Yeah. I do.”

She nods. “Then we need a plan.”


	14. Atlantic City

“We already have a plan,” Josh says to her.

“We do?” she asks skeptically. So far, I’d say she’s not such a big fan of the plan.

“Yes, it’s called The Being Together For The Rest Of Our Lives Without Ruining Our Careers Plan,” he says emphatically. I think he hears the Imperial butter fanfare when he says the title of the plan. You remember that commercial? Whenever someone said butter, you’d hear a little trumpet fanfare? Well, I think Josh hears that in his head when he says the title of the plan. He gets this look of…pride in his eyes. Anyway, when he says the title, CJ stares at him for a brief second and then starts laughing. Toby looks down and laughs quietly himself.

“That’s your title?” Toby asks.

“Yes.”

“That’s your title?” he asks again.

“Yes, what’s wrong with it?”

“It’s not a title, it’s a novel.” And when he says that, I laugh.

“Donna!” Josh squeaks at me.

“I’m sorry, honey, I love you.” I string out the word love and kiss him on the cheek.

He huffs for a few seconds while the rest of us try to control ourselves, then mumbles to himself, “It’s a very good plan,” which only makes CJ start laughing again.

Finally, we calm down and CJ says, “Ok, tell us about your very good novel plan.”

He looks at her like she’s evil, which, let’s face it, she is. “I don’t like you very much.”

“Really? I put you and Donna in a bed together, which led to your marriage. I’d think you’d like me a lot right now.”

“First of all, there was no question that someday Donna and I would get married, you just bumped up the timeline. Second, that was not your intention when you put us in a bed together, and third, well…you’re being mean to me.”

“Are you going to tell us the plan, or are you just going to whine like a child all day?” Toby asks him. Then he turns to me. “You just signed up for a lifetime of this.” I just nod.

“Ok,” Josh says a little loudly. “I think we’ve picked on Josh enough. Let’s get on with the plan.”

“Yes,” says Toby. “Let’s.”

“Thank you Toby. Step one on the plan was to get married in a very non-drunk sort of way. Flowers, limousines, pictures, proper rings, proper attire, etc. We’ve completed step one.”

“Very good,” CJ says sarcastically.

“Step two on the plan…”

“Josh,” I interrupt.

“What?”

“They don’t need to know what step two was.”

He smirks at me. “Really?”

“Really,” I say giving him a look. He knows what look he’s getting.

“I think they do.”

“They most certainly do not.”

“Step two included lots and lots of wedding night sex,” he says to Toby and CJ, and then looks at me again. “You should have though about that before you laughed at the plan title,” he says, raising his eyebrows at me. That’s my husband. Very mature, isn’t he?

“I gather you’ve completed step two of the plan,” Toby says.

“As a matter-of-fact, yes,” Josh says to him.

“I’m getting those details at lunch later this week, right?” CJ asks me.

“Absolutely.”

“Donna!” Josh squeaks again.

“You should have thought about that before you spouted off about step two,” I say the same way he said it to me.

He looks at me for a few seconds, with that same look of evilness he gave CJ, and then grabs me by the back of the neck and plants a long deep kiss on me before my brain even has time to register that it’s going to happen.

“Ok, let’s move on with the plan details,” Toby says, disgusted with the pda going on.

“Right, sorry,” Josh says. “Actually, no I’m not sorry.” He leans over and kisses me again.

“The plan Josh, the plan,” Toby says a bit more sternly.

“Right. Step number three on the plan is…hmm…I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?” Toby asks.

“A little preoccupied with step number two there, were you?” CJ asks.

I smile and step in for my brilliant husband. “Step number three was telling the two of you.”

“Yes,” says Josh. “Step number three was telling the two of you and that step has been completed. Step number four is the four of us telling Leo.”

“The four of us?” CJ asks.

“He can’t hurt me with witnesses in the room.”

“But he can fire you,” Toby says.

“Ahh…but he won’t. Because we’re going to be a team, Toby,” he says, stressing the word team. “And we’re going tell him how we’re going to deal with the press.”

“And how are we going to deal with the press?” CJ asks, stressing the word we.

“Ahh… that would be step five of the plan.”

“The Being Together For The Rest Of Our Lives Without Ruining Our Careers Plan,” CJ deadpans.

“Yes, that’s the one.”

She turns to me. “The rest of your life.” Then she turns back to Josh. “And what is step five?”

“Honesty. Complete and total honesty. Full Disclosure. But that’s as far as we got. That’s where you two come in.”

“So basically, the plan was get married, have sex, and then beg CJ and myself for help,” Toby says.

“Exactly!”

“Honesty. You think that’ll do it?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“So I just walk into the pressroom and say, ‘by the way, Josh Lyman married his assistant this weekend,’ and there will be no questions?”

“No, there will be questions, but instead of no comment, you answer them.”

“I answer them?”

“Yes.”

She ponders this for a second, which is precisely when my phone rings. I pull it out of my purse and look at the display. “Oh no,” I say quietly.

“What?” Josh asks me.

“My parents,” I say in a voice of dread.

“Ohhhh….” he says slowly, stifling a laugh. I shoot him a death glare.

“Have you told them?” CJ asks.

“Kind of,” I say weakly.

“She left it on their machine,” Josh says, in a not so supportive voice if you ask me.

I shrug. “They weren’t home.”

“Go ahead,” Josh says to me, trying to keep from laughing and failing.

“Noooo….” I say, shaking my head back and forth.

“Donna…” 

“Fine,” I huff at him, and hit my send button. “Hello?”

“Married?” my mother screams into the phone.

“Mom, hi. I can’t really talk right now.” 

“I come home from church to a message saying you got married, and you can’t talk? You will talk, Donnatella.”

“We can talk later, but…”

My mom interrupts me. “Are you pregnant?”

“What? No!” I scream.

“Calm down, I was just checking,” she says calmly.

“Mom, I have to…”

“Are you going to bring him home for Thanksgiving next month?”

“We haven’t really…” 

“Your grandmother is going to be heartbroken that she wasn’t there. She wanted you to wear her dress.” I glance over to see Josh staring at me and smiling. I give him an evil eye and he just smirks at me.

“I know, but it was a spur …”

“And Mary Boggs asked me today if you were ever going to settle down and have children. I can’t wait to call her and…”

“You can’t tell her yet, Mom.”

“Fine. Are you going to be moving out of that dreadful apartment of yours?”

“Yes, although it’s not dreadful. I’ll be mov…”

“Oh, you need to register. Everyone will want to know about gifts. And I’ll need your new address and phone number.”

“Mom, can’t we discu…”

“And you should plan a party. Like an open house, here in town.” Josh is still laughing. I hold the phone out for him to take it, but he shakes his head back and forth and whispers, “I’ll be good.”

“Mother. Listen to me. I can’t do this right now. We’re trying to hash out some work...” 

“They aren’t going to make you quit, are they?” I look at Toby, who’s very amused at my expense as well. He gets the same evil eye Josh got.

“I don’t know. That’s what…”

“You tell them that that man wouldn’t be half the politician he is without you there with him.”

“Mom, it’s not that sim….”

“He wouldn’t last a day without you.”

”Mom, I have to go. We’ll talk tonight.”

She takes a long breath. “Fine. Give my son-in-law a kiss for me and tell him he has to come up here and meet the family.”

“Yes Mom.”

“And you’re going to e-mail me pictures tonight?”

“I promise.”

“And you’re happy?”

I can’t help smiling when she says that. “Happier than ever.”

“I knew it. Love you Honey.”

“You too. Talk to you tonight.” I hang up and kiss Josh on the cheek. “That was from my mom.”

“Good thing you didn’t use tongue then,” CJ says. Josh and Toby both cringe.

“Ok,” Toby says. “As fun as it was to watch Donna’s face contort in pain, I think we should get back to the plan.”

“The Being Together For The Rest…”

“We’ve got it,” CJ interrupts Josh, which makes him pout. She looks at me and points to him. “The rest of your life.”

“So, complete honesty?” Toby says.

“Yes.”

“They’ll think you’ve been dating in secret,” CJ says.

“Point out my last failed relationship with Amy.”

“Joshua, I thought I told you not to say her name.”

His eyes get big. “But, if I’d referred to her as ‘the bitch’, they wouldn’t have known who I was talking about.”

”Yes we would have,” CJ says.

“Absolutely,” Toby adds.

“Ok… but still. We’ve both openly dated other people within the last year.”

“That’ll help,” says Toby.

“They’ll ask if she’s pregnant,” CJ says.

“Maybe, maybe not,” says Josh. 

“My mom just did,” I say.

“She did?” he screeches.

“Yep. Maybe you should just announce it when you announce the wedding. ‘Josh Lyman and Donna Moss got married this weekend, and no, she’s not pregnant. They’re simply in love,’” I say, kidding.

“Yeah, that’d go over well,” Josh says, chuckling.

“Actually,” says Toby. “That’s exactly what I’d do. I’d give all the information up front. ‘Josh Lyman and his senior assistant, Donna Moss were married in a private ceremony this weekend in Atlantic City and no she’s not pregnant. And before you ask, no, they haven’t been dating, in fact they’ve both recently dated other people. There simply comes a time when you stop fighting the obvious, and for them that was this weekend. We at the White House are ecstatic for both of them, especially for Josh, who has definitely married up. As far as work is concerned, they’re both planning on staying in their current positions for the foreseeable future, unless Donna gets sick of him and takes one of the many job offers she receives on a regular basis. Carol’s passing out some jpeg’s of the beautiful ceremony for you to publish as you see fit, and Donna’s apartment will be going up for rent this week if anyone’s looking.’ You make it all sound light and funny, but before they can speculate, you’ve taken away the notion of pregnancy, them living together before getting married, or Donna being fired. You also make Josh look like the lucky one and point out her reputation of being amazing at her job, which will deflect the name calling.” 

“I could ask the President for a comment. Keep everything positive. We couldn’t be happier,” CJ says.

“Maybe arrange for a few republicans to comment on record that they’re happy for us,” Josh says.

“Matt Skinner,” I say.

CJ looks at me. “Be prepared to show documentation of separate hotel rooms on business trips, in case it comes up.”

I nod. “We keep all receipts, I can pull up any trip they ask about.”

“So,” says CJ. “This is the plan.”

“This is the plan. The Being Together For The Rest Of Our Lives Without Ruining Our Careers Plan. You can make it work?” Josh asks her hopefully.

She nods. “You’ll get a little lip, but I can keep it to a minimum, and I’m not calling it that.”

“Ok, then,” Toby says, handing Josh the bill for breakfast. “We better get going, we’ve got a three hour drive. Josh’s buying.” Josh doesn’t even complain; he just tosses a few bills on the table, takes my hand, and we head out.

“We’ll call Leo on the way and have him meet us at the office,” CJ says as we leave the restaurant.

As we walk through the casino on our way out of the hotel I look around at the slot machines and blackjack tables. “A weekend in Atlantic City and I didn’t gamble at all. Not one bit.”

CJ looks at Josh and then at me. “Oh yes you did.”


End file.
